


The Woman Uptown

by itchyfingers



Series: Tom and Moira [2]
Category: Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Jealousy, Romance, Second Chances, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:09:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1522310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itchyfingers/pseuds/itchyfingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after Tom and Moira split up they run into each other again. Can they find love this time?</p><p>I published this story earlier and took it down for some pretty serious flaws. I'm republishing an edited version now. I think this version is better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Tom was talking to Luke about his schedule of events for the Cannes Film Festival as they walked down the hall at the publicity agency’s office. He was so intent on his conversation that he took the corner into the small waiting area at too sharp an angle and tripped over the foot of a woman sitting with her legs crossed. He grabbed her knee to keep from falling as she reached out and caught him by the coat. The thick denim under his hand was dark and stood out against the pair of emerald green suede heels the woman had on, both the material and the open toe a blithe ‘fuck you’ to the unceasing spring rain that was pelting down outside. The woman’s hand loosened on his arm and he turned to her to apologize for stumbling over her like a dolt and to ascertain that he hadn’t injured her in his clumsiness.

The bluish green eyes under dark brows looked familiar, but he couldn’t place them with that long, gently waving mass of dark hair that was loosely pulled back. And then as she stood up the full raspberry stained lips and a pendant necklace pointing his eye to her cleavage snapped the full picture into focus.

“Moira!”

“Tom.” She leaned forward like she was going to hug him but then stopped and rocked back. “I uh, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” She smoothed the front of her white button-down shirt.

He mirrored her action, running a hand over his own clothing, making sure everything was situated correctly as he stared at her. Beyond the hair, she didn’t look that different from when she had walked out the door over five years earlier. Her cheekbones might be a bit more prominent, but she still had those expressive eyebrows and pouty bottom lip. His eyes followed the line of her necklace down to the glimpse of her cleavage before he yanked his eyes back up to her face. He was not going to get caught ogling her glorious breasts again. “What are you doing here?”

“I was hoping Luke might have a minute for me. I had something I was going to ask him to give you, but I guess I can just give it to you myself now.” She opened the large satchel she had with her and pulled out a thick manila envelope.

Luke held out his hand. “I can take it and hold on to it until he has time to look at it.”

Tom waved Luke off. “Don’t be daft. I’ll take it.” His fingers brushed against Moira’s as he took it from her. He turned the envelope over in his hands, looking for some sort of identifying mark, before he smiled back up at her, feeling like a child at Christmas with a present. “What is it?”

She picked up her long black coat and folded it over her arm in front of her. She repeatedly smoothed the lapel as she talked. “It’s just something I wrote. I was wondering possibly if you had time you could maybe give it a once-over. Let me know what you think.”

“Of course.” He gripped her shoulder, hoping the extra weight of his hand would help her calm down. “Would you like to go get some tea? We should catch up.”

“Um, I can’t right now, but give me a call once you’ve had a chance to read it. My card’s in there with my number on it. No rush or anything.”

He couldn’t stop staring at her, remembering the way her lips had felt against his mouth, at the way his lips had felt against her skin. “It’s good to see you again, Moira.”

“You too.” She reached out her hand and he clasped it as a precursor to pulling her into a hug. Her back was stiff but relaxed after a second and she returned the hug. Her fingers brushed against the curls edging the nape of his neck. “I’ll call you soon.”

She nodded and smiled and pulled her coat on as she headed out the door. Tom and Luke watched her leave and then Luke held out his hand. “Would you like me to get rid of that for you?”

Tom tapped the corner of the envelope against his mouth as he watched her waiting for the lift through the glass doors. She ran a hand under her hair and lifted it out from under her coat and let it fall down her back. “What? No. I’m going to read it.”

“You’re going to take time out for the vanity project of an ex-girlfriend when your schedule is as packed as it is?”

Tom thumped the heavy packet against Luke’s chest. “She should never have been an ex.”


	2. Chapter One

Moira was lounging in bed rewatching season seven of  _Game of Thrones_ on her laptop when the device chirped at her. She tapped a key and the show paused and brought up her phone. A picture of Tom’s smiling face flashed in the caller ID. Her eyes widened and she quickly sat up straight and smoothed her hands over her hair before she tapped the button again to answer the call.

“Hello, Tom. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon. Or so late.” When she’d walked out of Luke’s offices that afternoon, she wasn’t sure if she would hear from him at all.

“I’m sorry about the time. I just gambled that you’d be up. Did I interrupt something?”

She shook her head. “No, just watching television. What can I do for you?”

He held up her manuscript. “Did you write this yourself?”

“No, it’s plagiarized.” She waited a beat for him to respond but he didn’t. “Yes, I wrote it.”

“All by yourself?”

Her eyes narrowed and she nodded emphatically. “Yes!”

“Can I buy it from you?”

Her dark brows scrunched together. “What, like the paper copy? I gave it to you. Don’t worry, I can print another.”

“No. Like the rights to it.”

Moira stared uncomprehendingly at the image of Tom on her screen. “What?”

That familiar smile spread across his face. “I want to buy the rights to it. I want to produce this.”

She fell back against the headboard and her hand slowly rose to her forehead. “And I think I’m going to tell you to shut your stupid liar mouth again.”

“Seriously. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but… ,” his voice trailed off as his eyes dropped from her face. His head tilted slowly to the side. “Are you in bed?”

Moira yanked up the neckline of her shirt and sat up straight again. “Focus, Hiddleston.”

“Yes, sorry. Right.” He looked at the stack of papers in his hand and then back at her. “I’m not done reading it and it’s still rough and need some work, but I am definitely interested in it.”

Moira’s fingers clenched repeatedly around the neckline of her shirt. “I’m not expecting this from you, you know. That’s not why I came to you with it. I just wanted some feedback from you, considering you’re the reason I wrote it. Sort of.”

Tom sat back in his chair. “You wrote this for me?”

“Not  _for_  you, you egotistical cow.” She shrugged and looked down at her lap. “You’re the first person that actually believed in my writing. So I decided to be crazy and go after my dreams and all that other inspirational crap you spout at the drop of a hat and I got my Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing.”

“But what about your dreams of being a children’s librarian?”

“Budget cuts. Most libraries don’t pay you any extra to have the degree anymore, so I still work as a librarian without the right letters behind my name. And I write in my spare time. And hopefully someday I’ll be a slightly less poor librarian.”

“I’m not promising anything, but I think you’ll definitely end up a slightly less poor librarian if this is what you’re capable of. Can we get together and discuss this in person?”

Moira tamped down the glee bubbling up inside of her. Her first attempt at writing a play and Mr. Olivier and Mr. Tony thought it was good enough to produce. “Of course. Should I call Luke and get put on your calendar?”

“No. How about dinner tomorrow night?”

She bit the inside of her bottom lip for a moment. “I think lunch would be more professional.”

“Ah.” Tom rubbed at his throat as he looked up at her from lowered eyes. “So that’s what we have now, just a professional relationship?”

Moira sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She had been dreading this conversation; it was why she had delayed going to see Luke for two months. “You don’t get to ignore me and then expect me to just happily pick up where we left off five years ago.”

Tom leaned forward, his eyes narrowing at the unfairness of her accusation. “You’re the one who walked out the door, Moira.”

“You’re the one who didn’t return my calls.”

Tom shook his head. “You never called me.”

“I tried. Once  _Coriolanus_  was done and you got back from shooting  _Crimson Peak._ Like I said I would when I said goodbye. But your number was different.”

“Yeah, I had to change it thanks to your little friend Bee. And you had moved out of the building without leaving a forwarding address. I got back and there was a stranger living in your flat.”

“It wasn’t my flat. Mrs. Faultham died in Nepal and I had to move so her daughters could sell it. That was fun finding new accommodations with a week’s notice. I called Luke and left messages for you. I figured when he started having his assistant field my calls that it was a sign so I stopped.”

Tom’s head snapped back. “You called Luke?”

“Four times. You never called me back. I have my pride, Thomas.”

“I never got the messages.”

They stared at each other for several seconds as the implications of those missed messages sunk in. “You could have called me,” she whispered. Her anger at him ignoring her had disappeared.

Tom rubbed his hands across his face. “So you’re saying you were willing to give us another chance all those years ago.”

“Yes.”

Tom’s eyes closed and he swallowed back the anger twisting his jaw. “I’ll pick you up for dinner tomorrow night. Say seven? Wear something nice. I’m taking you out on a proper fucking date and we’ll discuss your play.”

“Uh, alright.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to call Luke.”

The call abruptly terminated and the screen went back to the display picture of his smiling face. She started  _Game of Thrones_ again, grateful she’d already watched this episode multiple times because she couldn’t concentrate on it. She let it serve as background noise as her thoughts chased their tails in her head. They all centered on one piece of information – he hadn’t been avoiding her. Quickly behind that came the question, how different would the last five years have been if just one of her messages to him had gotten through?

***

Tom pounded on the door and waited for Luke to answer it, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He had changed his mind about calling Luke; this was a conversation that needed to happen face to face. The rain drops spattered off his coat as he bounced. Neither the rain nor the dark had deterred him as he had run the distance to Luke’s home. He had wanted to lose the furious energy that had coursed through him since the instant he realized that he might have wasted five years of being with Moira, but the run had simply focused all his thoughts on one thing: she had wanted to be with him, and Luke had kept it from happening. The light by the door flipped on and the door cracked open. Tom rammed it the rest of the way open and stormed inside.

“What’s going on?”

Tom pushed Luke against the wall. “She called you.”

Luke shoved Tom back and then smoothed his shirt, wiping off the wet marks Tom had left. “Who?”

Tom’s nostrils flared as tried to calm down. “Moira.” He spit out her name.

“When?” Luke looked at the phone in his hand.

“Five years ago.”

Luke took a deep breath and let it out as he put his phone away. He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “Yeah. She couldn’t get ahold of you so she called me and we discussed how to handle it and protect you from what Bee might do. She agreed with me that a pro-active plan of attack was the best solution.”

“Not then. When I got back from… Wait. It was  _your_ idea that she break up with me?”

“Something needed to be done Tom. We were on the verge of a major disaster.”

Tom advanced on Luke, but Luke held up his hand and Tom stopped. The muscle in his jaw spasmed repeatedly as he fought to keep from exploding at one of his best friends. “People get their phones hacked. It happens. There was no reason she needed to break up with me.”

“Oh really?” Tom grimaced at Luke’s easy dismissal of his fury. “I’d already barely managed to keep you out of one sex tape scandal and you were doing your best to get involved in another one. I’m sure you wanted  _that_  scandal to hit the headlines right as you were going into final contract negotiations for King Arthur. You can just hand me back the Emmy and the BAFTA if you think the Beeb would cast you in a lead role when you’d managed to get the personal numbers and texts from all the lovely producers and directors in England posted all over the bloody Internet. No one would have wanted to work with you for quite a bit, and it’s  _my_  job to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Tom stared at the floor, his breathing loud and angry as he tried to find a flaw in Luke’s reasoning and failed. “And then when it was over,” he still wouldn’t look at Luke, “and Bee was in prison, and Moira got ahold of you to talk to me? Why didn’t you give me the messages then?”

“I screen a lot of your calls, Tom. People always want a piece of you.”

Tom raised his head like a lion scenting prey. “She wasn’t  _people_. She was my ex-girlfriend.”

“She’s bad for you, Thomas. Please just let this drop before it blows up in your face. You’ve had me screen calls from ex-girlfriends before. This wasn’t anything new. And if you had really wanted to find her, you would have, so don’t put this shit on me. I was just doing my job. You pursued your career rather than her, and that was  _your_  choice. It was the best choice and you know it.”

Tom’s lips almost disappeared as his mouth pressed together, trying to come up with any logical way to reject the blame Luke had just put on him. Luke was right, however, but even though Tom knew Luke was correct, it didn’t make it any easier to accept. He turned around and opened the door, letting in a gust of cold wind and a spattering of rain.

“Tom,” Luke said, and Tom turned around. “You lay a hand on me again, and I’m upping my percentage three points.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” He ran a hand over his hair. “I was being an arse.  Nothing like realizing you made a massive mistake to turn you into an utter bastard.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed at the rain pouring down behind Tom. “Let me call you a cab.”

“Nah. Hopefully I can run out some of this frustration.”

It was a long dark wet run home, and though he was the only one insane enough to be out in the weather at one in the morning, he wasn’t alone. Chasing him home were the nipping teeth of the goblins his mind kept conjuring from the one question pulsing in his head. If he really had been in love with her, why had he let Luke talk him out of finding her? Was it really love he had felt? 


	3. Chapter Two

Moira was holding up various necklaces against her black dress and staring fretfully into the mirror when her phone buzzed.

“It occurs to me that I don’t actually know where you live now,” she read.

She laughed and tapped in her address. “It’s in the Royal Arsenal development.”

“Oh, way uptown then. I should get moving if I don’t want to be late.”

She settled on the vintage necklace her father had given her as a graduation gift, three strands of lilies of the valley, each flower a beautiful bead of white jade cupped in brass petals. She slipped them over her head and went back to staring at herself in the mirror. Her face dissolved into a blur of questions. Was the dress too businessy? How serious was he about this being a date rather than a development meeting? What did he want to do with her play? Which parts were rough? Had he finished reading it?

Thirty minutes of fretting went by remarkably fast and soon she was buzzing Tom into the building. She had volunteered to meet him downstairs, but he insisted on coming up to her door. Moira put on a smile to hide her nerves as she opened the door but seeing him standing there on the mat with a bouquet of flowers in his hand amplified the nervous bubbles in her stomach.He held out the tulips to her. “You look beautiful.”

She took the yellow blossoms from him. “Thank you. You don’t look half bad yourself.” That was an understatement of the year. In his dark suit and tie, the silver gleam of a collar bar just peeking out, he looked like sex on a stick, and she had a sudden remembrance of how that few days of scruff on his chin felt against her skin.  Without realizing it, she shook her head to clear away the thoughts fogging her brain. “Why don’t you come in while I put these in water?”

“Cute little flat you have,” he said as she searched through the cupboards for something that would serve as a vase. “Different than what I thought it would look like.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s very…modern. I pictured you having more piles of books and overstuffed furniture once you were living in your own place. This is very sleek. It’s not bad,” he hurriedly added, realizing he might be coming across as insulting, “just not what I had imagined.”

Moira filled the tallest glass she had with water. “It’s alright. This was the show-room for the building, and they gave me a deal on taking the furnishings when I rented it. Cheaper than buying all my own things or shipping stuff across an ocean, you know.”

“Right.” He stared at the gigantic framed black and white photo of two people hanging over the white couch. “Am I supposed to know who they are?”

She came over to stand by him, just a few inches shorter than him in the heels she was wearing. “I don’t think so. They’re just generically fabulous.”

He turned to her and wound one of her locks of hair around his finger. “As opposed to you. You are uniquely fabulous.”

Moira shrugged off the compliment and his touch. “Ready to go?”

“What, no grand tour?”

Moira spun in a circle. “This is it. Kitchen, dining room, living room all in one, I don’t think you get to see the bedroom yet, and the bathroom is by the front door. I guess I can show you the coat closet if you want.”

Tom was not yet ready to leave Moira’s private sanctum. “I noticed you have a little balcony.”

Moira opened the door out onto the small railed space and stepped out onto the textured concrete. “This is my tiny little piece of the grand outdoors. Nice view of the common garden, but I rarely come out here. I should get a little table and two chairs like a Parisian café or something. Maybe some plants. But it’s too high for you to recreate Romeo and Juliet, so get the idea out of your head, Hiddles. I’m not doing any more Shakespeare reenactments with you.”

Tom smiled guiltily, for he had indeed been calculating the distance to the ground. “I thought the last one we did went rather well.”

Moira remembered this as well, the way his voice wrapped around her like velvet, exerting a gravitational pull that drew her closer to him without her volition or knowledge.  She turned away and went back inside. “Yes, well I’m a sensible adult now.”

Tom slid the glass door shut behind him and politely changed the topic. “How long have you been back in London?”

“Almost two months now. Long enough to run out of excuses for not giving you that manuscript.”

“I finished reading it today. It has real potential.”

She ran her hand through her hair and pushed it back behind her shoulder. “Thank you. I trusted you would be honest with me. I’m not sure why after everything that happened, but I knew you would tell me if I should scrap it and do something else.”

“You have real talent, darling.”

Moira pointed a finger at him. “No darlings. Or other terms of endearment. Not yet.” Her finger dropped and so did her chin. “Maybe not ever.”

Tom closed the distance between them in two long strides. “I missed you, Moira. I never stopped thinking about you.”

She lifted her face to look at him, their eyes just inches apart. “Then why didn’t you try harder to find me?”

Tom rocked back on his heels. “I’ve been thinking about that since I yelled at Luke last night. I don’t think there’s one reason. I think it’s bits and pieces of several things.” He fiddled with the silk orchid sitting in the middle of the table. “First, I meant what I said that last time. You deserved to have a normal life for a while. You were really young. You were outside the half my age plus seven rule for dating acceptability. It’s not that you were immature, but there were so many experiences you hadn’t had yet. Experiences that I wanted you to have. I wanted you to be the center of your own life for a while, instead of having to work around my schedule and fans and worrying about all that insanity.”

Moira raised her hand to her mouth and then jerked it away, not wanting to smear the lipstick she had carefully applied. “I can understand that. Why else?”

“I got back from doing  _Crimson Peak_  and you weren’t there, and there wasn’t a forwarding address, and I was trying to be a gentleman and not push when you obviously didn’t want me in your life.”

Moira huffed in disbelief. “That’s the conclusion you jumped to? That I didn’t want you in my life because Mrs. Faultham died and I had to move?”

Tom faced down her scowl, though he ran a hand through his hair and couldn’t exactly meet her eyes. “It was an easy conclusion to jump to.”

“It was wrong, though.”                                                                          

“I know that now. And I should have looked for you. I never even bothered calling you.”

Moira grasped her necklace, the flowers chiming quietly against each other as she toyed with it. “No, you didn’t.” She wrapped her other arm around her waist.

Tom leaned back against the table. “Why did you seek me out after all these years?”

“Because I wanted you to know you made a difference. Even if we didn’t have that much time together, you changed my life for the better. And I felt like you should know that, even if I apparently never meant much to you.”

“You meant a lot to me, Moira.”

She stared at the generically beautiful people on the wall. “Not enough to pick up a phone.”

“It’s not like that.”

Her head snapped around to face him, her nostrils flaring. “Then what is it? Because right now I see you standing there in your expensive suit and there’s still the same amount of years difference and sure, I’m a little older so I’m not in the creepy age zone anymore, but you have five more years of experiences that I don’t because you chose to have them without me, so why would this time be any longer?”

“Because…” his fingers tapped against the shiny white table top.

“Because what?

“Because last time I chose to focus on my work,” he spit out, not looking at her. “It seemed smarter based on the information I had at the time.

Moira leaned back, her eyes blinking. “Well, at least that’s honest.”

“I didn’t know how many more years of celebrity working in my advantage I had left. So I could spend my energy tracking you down and begging you to give me another chance – and I have my pride too, Moira – or I could throw it all into _King Arthur_.”

Her fingers tightened around her necklace. “I injured  _your_  pride?”

“You had me begging for your affection every step of the way.”

Her nostrils flared as her jaw jutted forward. “You gambled with my heart and then accused me of taping us having sex for money. There was a reason you were playing from behind.”

“I never played with your behind. Even when you were begging me to spank you.”

The color flared in Moira’s cheeks and she stomped over to the door, yanked it open, and gestured for Tom to leave. His eyes closed and his shoulders sagged. “Please. I’m sorry. Can we just…” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. This close to him she could see that it had begun to thin. “Can we please start over?”

“Tonight or the last five and a half years?”

He took the door handle from her hand and quietly shut the door before leaning back against it. “Listen. I know I’ve done some crap things in the past. You know that even better than I do unfortunately. But there were moments of perfection in there as well, Moira. Evenings of sublime delight. Please tell me you want another chance to get it right.”

Her laugh was as brittle as winter ice during a warm snap. “So you can decide that the next job offer is worth more to you than spending time with me?”

“I’ve never stopped regretting the decision that I made to go on without you.”

“Then why didn’t you do something about it? You could have found me. I can’t possibly be  _that_ difficult to find. It’s not like I was hiding or anything.” Her nails bit into the palms of her hands. “My parents still have a land-line, for the love of all that’s holy. They’re in the fucking phone book.”

“Because the longer I waited, the more I regretted it, but the harder it got to call.”

“Or was it because something else was getting harder?” she sneered.

“What are you implying?”

“You sure haven’t lacked for company in the last few years. Lots of pretty girls on your arm. All nice and skinny with perky little boobs. No jiggle or wiggle there.” She held up both hands and walked away from him.

Tom grabbed her shoulder and spun her back around fast enough that she stumbled. “Do you really think I’m that shallow?”

“I don’t know  _what_  to think.”

“I sabotaged every relationship I was in because I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”

“That’s a good story now,” she scoffed.

“I’ll let you ring them up. All three of my exes from the past five years. Talk to Madeleine. Ask her about what I fought with her about that led to her dumping me for being overly passionate about things that don’t matter and not passionate enough about the things that do. Spoiler alert, it was  _The Secret Garden._ Or there was Zara. Lovely woman. Apparently I talked to you in my sleep one too many times, and then accidentally called her by your name while we were having sex, and couldn’t make her believe that she’d just heard me wrong.”

The muscles in her shoulders unknotted as she listened to him. “And the third one?”

“Cerys. Lovely lovely Cerys. I watched  _The Jungle Book_ with her. She wouldn’t sing along. And then we both came home late from this crazy party and I flipped on the telly and  _Zorro the Gay Blade_ was on and she didn’t understand why I was laughing so hard and told me the movie was stupid and I muttered, ‘No, you’re stupid,’” Moira snorted and slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Tom gently tugged her hand away and stroked his thumb over her bottom lip, “ _She_ didn’t think it was funny.”

She wrapped her hand around the one Tom was using to stroke her face and held it still. “And yet I’m supposed to believe with all that going on you never got the courage to call?”

Tom wasn’t going to mention that he’d had her number in his contacts for the last five years, or that he’d spent many an evening with those digits up on his screen, his thumb hovering over the green call button. “You’d moved on. I googled you a few times, found your Twitter and your Instagram, you seemed very happy. Especially with Jax.”

She paused and her pulse fluttered. “I was happy with Jax.”

“More or less happy than you were with Rhys?”

She dropped Tom’s hand and stepped away from him, the heels of her shoes loud against the hardwood floor. “More.”

“And where does Dylan fit in there?”

She scowled at him. “Alright, I get your point, stalker.”

“I should have grown a pair and come after you. I should have tracked you down and begged on my knees. But I didn’t. But please don’t prevent what could be a beautiful future because of the mistakes of the past. Please, can we start over?”

Moira considered him for a while, mindlessly stroking her necklace. “The only way we learn and grow is from the mistakes of the past, Tom. It’s what keeps us from touching a hot stove over and over. We learn what hurts and we avoid it.”

Tom’s head dropped.

“But.”

He looked up through his lashes. “But?”

“It sounds like maybe you’ve learned from the past five years too.”

“I have.”

“So, this is what we’re going to do, if it suits you.”

A smile began to creep across his face. “Say on, sweet lady.”

“We’re not going to go on a date tonight.”

His brows flew together in a confused vee. “We’re not?”

“No.”

His eyes flickered to the closed door that guarded her bedroom. “Are we going to do something else instead?”

“I am going to go change into something a tad less understated than this, and then I’m going to go to a bar and have a drink, and I’m going to flirt and have a delightful evening, and you’re going to show up and see if you can impress me more than any of the other young bucks who are looking for a good time. Convince me to give you my number. No using the knowledge you already have about me though. If we’re starting over, we’re starting over. The hole you’ve dug yourself into by not tracking me down will set you at a deficit against your competitors, but I know you’re very capable of putting on a good performance so I think the playing field is still tilted in your favor.”

“But if we’re starting over, why am I in a hole? Shouldn’t I get a fresh start too?”

“Because I tried to find you, but you never tried to find me. So tonight you have to try a little harder.”

Tom nodded and rubbed his fingers against his mouth. “Which bar did you have in mind for this little activity?”

“How about Grain Store Bar?”

“Excellent choice. Would you like a head start on picking up admirers before I arrive?”

She tapped a finger against her chin. “Why don’t you get there about nine?”

“That sounds perfect.  I think I’ll go home and change into something a tad less understated as well.”

Moira shook her head. “What you have on is fine.”

His jaw shifted to the side as he walked towards her. “Oh, no, my sweet lady. If you want me to compete for your hand, I will, and I will admit no impediment to my pursuit.” He took her hand in his and kissed the back of it. “The game is on.”

Moira clutched her necklace as she watched him walk out the door, her mouth hanging slightly open. This might not have been such a good idea after all.


	4. Chapter Three

Tom sauntered into the Grain Store bar a few minutes after nine and scanned the room looking for Moira. He found her perched on one of the tall stools at the bar, deep in conversation with a man sitting next to her. She’d changed out her sedate black dress for a clingy knit number in a deep blue. The dress fell off one shoulder, and with her hair up the soft line of her elegant neck down to her upper arm was uninterrupted. As he approached, he heard the soft clinking of a stack of gold bangles as she reached for her glass.

Tom claimed the stool next to her, and motioned for the bartender. He was immediately waited on and he turned to Moira. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Moira tapped the rim of her glass. “I have one, thank you. Derrick here was kind enough to buy it for me.” She let her fingers rest on Derrick’s forearm.

Tom leaned around Moira so he could see Derrick better. The man was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. Tom reached out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Derrick. I’m Tom.”

“Nice to meet you. I’ve been a fan of your work for years.”

The two men shook hands. “I’ll leave you two to your conversation,” Tom said, and turned around so he was looking out over the tables. The buzz of voices that had been building for the last few minutes crescendoed as there was confirmation that it was indeed Tom Hiddleston, and the first few admiring fans approached him.

He spent the next several minutes signing autographs and taking pictures with fans before he returned to his seat, just in time to hear Derrick say, “I have to be going, unfortunately. I don’t suppose you would allow me to call you, Moira?”

Moira tapped a finger against her chin as she smiled. “Well, I suppose I could allow that. Do you have a pen?”

Tom picked up his drink and took a swallow of the aged scotch. It burned down his throat, but his temper burned more as Moira flipped over a coaster and wrote her number and name on the thin piece of paperboard and handed it to Derrick. He stood and kissed her on the cheek. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Moira. I’ll call you. Maybe we can get together over the weekend for dinner.”

“That would be nice.”Derrick nodded at Tom as he exited and Tom politely smiled, a performance that taxed his acting abilities. He took another drink as Moira delicately sipped at whatever complicated cocktail she had ordered. “You gave him your number.”

“I did.” Moira took another sip of her beverage.

“Your  _real_  number.”

She carefully set the glass down and dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a small napkin. “Yes. It usually works better that way.”

Tom put his hand on Moira’s seat and turned it so she was facing him. He bracketed her crossed legs between his knees. “Why?”

“So he can call me,” she explained, as if to a particularly dull child.

His jaw twisted to the side and he ran a hand down his chest, smoothing over the buttons to his waistcoat as if he could stroke his growling temper back into placidity so easily. “Why do you want him to call you?”

“Because he’s tall, good looking, educated, smart, and funny. Why wouldn’t I want him to call me?”

She reached for her cocktail but Tom took it from her hand and placed it back on the bar, his knuckles white around the glass as he was very careful not to slam it back down. “Because you have me.”

Moira’s fingers closed around the neckline of her dress as she reached for her necklace and realized she hadn’t worn one. “You don’t know that yet. You haven’t wooed me and won me over.”

Tom leaned in so he was only a few inches away from her face. “Like hell I haven’t, Moira.”

Moira stared at him, frozen in place by the cold anger in his eyes for long seconds before she tried to turn so she wasn’t facing him, only to find his knees keeping her in place. She leaned back in her chair instead. “We’re starting over.”

“No.” His pupils and his nostrils flared. “No, we’re not. You’re making me win you back and I’m tired of these games. I’m  _tired_ of the games we always play. It has been game after game, your fault, my fault, it doesn’t matter whose fault. We have played at love and it didn’t work. I don’t want to play anymore.”

“I’m not playing.”

“You are. ‘Win me back, Tom,’” he mimicked her voice almost perfectly. “’Prove to me that you want me.’  It was fine when I thought we had all the time in the world, but all it got us was five years of regrets. I fucked up. I admit it. But you’re going to have to stop punishing me for the past if you want us to have a future.”

Her full lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m not punishing you.”

“You are. ‘You didn’t call me then,’” he imitated her again, “’so I’m going to make you sit and watch me flirt with other men.’ I meant what I said the one night you spent in my bed Moira.  _You’re mine_. I don’t share and now that I’m back and I’ve made my intentions known, you choose.”

Her chin jutted forward and her eyebrows lowered in a familiar scowl. “So what, I fuck you tonight or you leave?”

“No. You don’t have to fall into my bed tonight. But you  _choose_. You choose us with a fresh start and no more bringing up the past and no more games, or you choose to go play your games with someone else. I may have spent five years mourning the chance we lost, Moira, but sooner or later living in the past loses its charms.”

She blinked several times as her eyes flickered away from his gaze and then back to it over and over as if she couldn’t stand to be the target of such intense scrutiny, but couldn’t bear it if he were to look away from her. “So we’d be like boyfriend and girlfriend or something?” she said softly.

Tom smiled at her sudden hesitancy. “Or something, yeah. Why does that seem like such a surprise to you?”

“Because I thought you had moved on. You chose something else and someone else and forgot about me.”

He took her hand, carefully loosening the death grasp of her fingers around the neckline of her dress, and held it in his. “And I thought the same thing about you. And we were both wrong. So can you please let go of the mistakes we both made? Forgive me. Forgive yourself. And let me take you to dinner instead of having to give the side-eye to the other men in here who keep looking over here.”

She snorted. “They’re probably looking at you, Mr. Famous.”

He leaned closer to her so she could feel his warm breath against her cheek as he murmured, “No. I’m fairly certain it’s your shoulder that’s getting the admiring glances, and your legs in those stockings with the seam up the back that makes their eyes linger, and your neck that would make a swan swoon with envy.”

Moira’s next breath came out as a shudder. “Well luckily there are no swans about.” She picked up her drink and pressed the cold glass to her burning cheeks. “I’d forgotten what you’re like when you set your mind to persuading a girl.”

“What do you say then, Moira? What’s your choice?”

She was rushing into this like she had last time. Her previous words about learning from past burns melted away like the ice in her drink. She carefully put the glass back down with the slightest shake in her fingers and twisted her hand in his so she could link her fingers through his. “I choose you.”

He leaned in and kissed her softly. He had a good idea that a picture of this moment was going to end up on every social network before he made it home, but he frankly couldn’t be bothered to care. “Good. Now let’s go find a table in the restaurant. I’m starving.”


	5. Chapter Four

Moira didn’t know if he’d already reserved a table or it was one of the innumerable perks of being famous, but they were seated immediately. Tom ordered for both of them without even seeing the menu and then turned to Moira. “So, fresh start.”

She looked down at the cloth napkin on the table and picked it up and put it in her lap, playing with the neatly hemmed corner. “Right.”

“Moira?”

She looked up at him, trepidation hiding in her eyes that were shading more towards blue than green.

“You don’t need to be afraid. I know I threw down the gauntlet in there, but you don’t need to be afraid of me.”

She tucked back one piece of hair that was threatening to fall from her coiffure. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Tom looked down at the wide space between them on the banquette and then back up at her. “Do I smell?”

“I wasn’t sure what kind of public demeanor you wanted to project. I mean, this is like a first date, you know.”

Tom pointed at the leather seat next to him. “Get over here.”

Moira rolled her eyes but scooted across the bench, resting in the crook of his arm draped across the back of the booth. “Better?”

His fingers played over her bare shoulder. “Yes. Now, tell me what you’ve been up to for the last five years.”

“I thought you knew. It sounded like it.”

He simply raised an eyebrow.

Her mouth pursed and she took a sip of water. “I’m sorry.” She ran her finger around the rim of the glass. “I’m prickly around you. As wonderful as you are, I still have a lot of bad memories about the way it ended.”

He tilted her face back towards him and away from the fascinating water with a single finger against her chin. “Fresh start, remember. What did you tell Derrick when he asked about you?”

“Well, my name, Hi, I’m a Moira. I’m twenty five, recently moved back to London after finishing my master’s degree. And here I am.”

“What’s your degree in?”

“You know that.”

Again, that eyebrow.

She folded her hands in her lap to keep from fidgeting. “Creative Writing.”

“And where did you attend?”

“University of Oregon.”

“So, you write for a living then?”

She shook her head, the low lighting reflecting off of the simple faceted stones that dangled from her ears. “I’m a librarian for a living. And when I’m not working, I’m scribbling away.”

“So, the play you gave me. Is that something you wrote for school?”

“No. I focused on fiction writing. I actually wrote a book for my thesis. And then I had the crazy idea to turn it into a play. I remember you talking about seeing _The Wind in the Willows_ as a child and then I wondered what my book would look like on stage, and so, as a joke, I tried sketching what a set would look like for one of the scenes, and then tried writing a scene, and I realized I didn’t know how to write for the stage, so I read a lot of books and kept going back and rewriting that scene, trying to put what I was reading into practice, and then finally, it clicked. Like, I looked at it on the page and could see it in my mind. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do. Figure out how to turn it into a play. So, since I’m used to having a mentor look at my work and give me some feedback, I screwed my courage to the sticking-place and gave it to you.”

Tom nodded and took a drink of his scotch. He put it down and leaned back into her, their bodies facing each other, sitting almost sideways on the banquette. “So you want me to be a mentor.”

Moira reached for her necklace again before she remembered that she wasn’t wearing one. She had never realized until tonight how much she played with her jewelry until tonight, sitting here with Tom Hiddleston. He could probably make Jesus nervous though, with the force of that gaze. “I don’t know what I want right now. Especially when you’re looking at me like that.”

He leaned closer to her. “Like what?” The faint disturbance in the air from his words slid against her skin.

“That you’d rather taste my lips than the starters we ordered.”

“Well, the starters aren’t here yet.”

Moira pointed at the table and the starters the waiter had set there a minute previous.

“Oh. I didn’t even notice.”

A soft pink highlighted Moira’s cheeks. “Very discreet staff here.”

“Apparently.” The conversation paused as they started to eat, but Tom soon put down his fork and knife. “Why did you come back to London?”

Moira set down her fork and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin to give herself a minute to put the longing she had felt into words. “I missed her. It rained about the same amount in Oregon, but I missed the energy and personality and history and how she’s ancient and new and stately and brash and constant and ever-changing all at once.”

“She is the best city in the world.”

“And yet you sound a little disappointed.”

He scratched the back of his neck. “I had hoped a bit that part of it maybe had been for me.”    

“After five years and four ignored calls, you wanted me to move across a continent and an ocean for you?”

Color rode high in its cheeks. “I know it’s irrational.”

“I did have fantasies about running into you.” Tom’s eyes snapped to hers and she grinned. “Of course, I was always on the arm of Prince Harry when I did it, and dressed in a fabulous gown and wearing a tiara he had borrowed from his grandmum.”

Tom laughed, his tongue caught between his teeth. “Prince Harry, huh?”

“All the fun, none of the responsibilities. And I uh, I’ve found I have a weakness for redheads. Or for gingers I should start calling them again.”

Tom very casually ran his fingers through his curls.

She giggled and tugged at a lock of his hair. “Yes, ginger like you, you ridiculous boy.”

Tom started eating again. “So, who mentored you before?”

“My professors.”

“And now you want me to mentor you.”

Her face crinkled in thought. “I would like some feedback from you, but I’m not sure you’d actually be a good mentor for me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you’ve never written a play, for one. You understand it from the acting end, not the writing end.”

He chuckled and took another drink. “I guess that’s true. It would be fun though. We could act out all those naughty professor fantasies you have.”

“What makes you think I have naughty professor fantasies?”

“Doesn’t every girl? Me in a shirt and tie, tweed blazer with elbow patches, a pair of spectacles, asking you to stay after class so we can discuss your writing.”

Moira swallowed noisily and then reached for her cocktail. She decided to focus on the one thing about that word picture that hadn’t sent fingers of flame merrily dancing over her skin. “Spectacles? Really? I think everyone in the world calls them glasses except for you.”

Tom would not be distracted. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“What question?”

He leaned in towards her again, taking her glass away from her and setting it down out of her reach. “Whether or not you have naughty professor fantasies about me.”

Moira couldn’t make her blush go away but she was going to admit to nothing in words. “I think you’ve been reading your own fan fiction.”

“How would you know unless you’ve read it too?”

One dark eyebrow rose and a grin curved her lips. “Too? So you admit you read fan fiction about you?”

“I did once or twice. It’s like they think I’ve got an elephant’s trunk swinging between my legs. Now you admit it.” He jabbed his chin at her.

The blush that had started to fade came back with reinforcements. “Once or twice. It doesn’t live up to the real thing though.”

He leaned in closer again. His head tilted so their noses wouldn’t bump as he spoke, his eyes fixed on hers. “You still remember that night? The one night we had?”

“A girl doesn’t forget a night like that. Even if it hadn’t been my first time, you seared yourself into my memories with volcanic heat.”

“Volcanic?” The word brushed against her lips.

“Like a sunburn that’s never faded.”

Moira closed her eyes as Tom kissed her. He was right. She was his and all the game playing would have only delayed this inevitable delicious moment where he tasted like vodka and peppermint and his hand closed in her hair and pulled just enough to position her mouth exactly where he wanted it . His touch sent shivers down her spine that exactly replicated the feel of New Year’s champagne on her tongue.

The waiter coughed quietly and Tom reluctantly pulled back, his nose brushing against hers as he turned to look at the man. Moira ran her thumb against his lip to wipe the smear of lipstick away as the waiter inquired if they were ready for their mains. Tom looked back at her. His fingers tightened on her shoulder. Her hand crept up his thigh and squeezed in response.

“We’ll take the cheque.”

Unfortunately, their cabbie recognized Tom and wanted to talk about all of the things he had seen Tom in. Moira tried not to giggle as she snuggled into Tom’s side for the duration of the ride and let her hand slide up and down his thigh, periodically travelling over the growing outline of his cock.

“You will pay for this,” he whispered against her ear in a rough growl that only encouraged her mischief.

As soon as the doors to the lift slid shut, he had her pressed up against the wall, his thigh pressed between her legs and grinding against her. Each rub of his leg against her core made her gasp, and his hands roamed over her body, gripping and squeezing handfuls of breast and hip.

The doors slid open and he hurried her down the hall, pressing her to the door of her flat as she tried to open it. His body was hard against her back, her cheek flat against the surface as he sucked at her earlobe while he rocked his hips against her arse, letting her feel exactly how ready he was for her.

She finally managed to get the door open and he shoved it shut behind them. “Finish the grand tour,” he ordered.

Moira grabbed his tie. “Let me show you the bedroom.” He started gathering her dress up her legs as she walked and when she paused a few seconds later, he pulled it off and tossed it behind him.

“Damn, woman. You are exquisite. You’re like a fifties Playboy bunny in that getup.”

Moira didn’t really consider it a getup but didn’t protest as he turned her around and started kissing down her spine. He undid the hooks on her boring black longline strapless bra. Boring but a workhorse. Paired with the equally boring black high waisted panties, her knit dress clung perfectly. There were no rolls where there shouldn’t be and the only thing that shook were the nerves of the men who approached her. If she had known this was how the night would have ended, she would have worn another dress, something she could have paired with elaborate lace and silk ribbons, but she hadn’t thought this was where the night was going. She hadn’t thought. Not at all.

If she had thought, no, if she had  _remembered_  the way Tom affected her, that one night in his bed, the way his words teased along her skin like kisses from a lesser man, the evenings on his sofa as they had slowly accelerated, the feel of his teeth on her breast, his hips hard between her legs, the unwelcome presence of fabric as a necessary brake on their intimacy. If she had _remembered,_ she would have gone for the lace. But five years away had dulled those memories, or she had written them off as fanciful, impossible exaggerations. But she was wrong.

He slid her panties down her legs, following them with burning kisses. When he stood back up, she stepped out of them as well as her heels and turned around so she was facing him. A sudden flare of worry illuminated her eyes but his appreciation was not diminished by seeing her in her natural state. Instead he kissed her again, his hands buried in her hair, pulling out the pins she had used to keep it contained. Her hair fell around them as he loosed each pin, and she came undone under his lips as her hair did under his fingers.

He walked her backward to the bed, Moira clad now in nothing but her stockings and they somehow managed to get both of them onto the bed without letting go of each other and without ceasing their kisses. She’d managed to get the waistcoat undone and his tie loosened, but the simple mechanics of shirt buttons escaped her trembling fingers. The button on his trousers was larger and easier to deal with and as hands reacquainted themselves with long-remembered skin, and mouths found throats and chests and stomachs, they managed to work his trousers down and off. Tom grabbed his tie and yanked it off, not bothering to undo it, shedding it like so much chaff before the wind. He fumbled the top few buttons free on his shirt before yanking it off over his head and then he fell on her again, skin on skin. He kissed her tattoo hello again, kissed the red lines her bra had left on her skin, kissed the faded white lines on her hips.

“Condoms?” he murmured against the dimple of her navel.

Her fingers tightened in his hair. “I’m on birth control,” she gasped out as he pressed her legs open and kissed her folds, dipping his tongue between them to brush against her clit. “Clean as of last physical, no partners since then.”

“I’m clean. Do you want me to use one?” His hands kneaded her breasts, his short nails leaving sharp bites that his fingers smoothed away.

“God, no. I want to feel you come in me.”

Tom groaned and levered himself up onto his knees, shoving her thighs wider open with his hands. His cock bobbed, hard and heavy, standing out from his body. “Tell me if you want me to wait.” His fingers slid over her wet folds and he pressed one finger inside her.

Her hips bucked up off the bed at his touch. “Now.”

He pulled out his finger and grabbed her hips, keeping them lifted, and quickly aligned her body to his. Her fingers scrabbled at the grey satin covering the bed as he thrust inside her and her breath came out as a surprised sweet whimper.  Tom’s head fell back as his hips snapped forward, and a growl ripped from him like a snarling predator that had brought down its prey.

Moira hooked her legs around his hips and Tom ran his hands up her stomach, over her breasts, and along her arms until he intertwined his fingers with hers. He held her hands by her head, pressing them into the cool fabric as the only relief from the fire that was consuming both of them. They almost kissed, but not quite, breath coming in hot gasps and heady pants as they moved together, fanning over cheeks and lips and chins. They drank each other’s breath, drank in the sight of the other no longer an ocean away, no longer separated even by the distance of a raindrop’s track down a cold window. Neither wanted to close their eyes, transfixed, no longer predator and prey but lovers in a mutual embrace. Her legs tightened around him, he let go of her hands, she scratched her nails down his back, his fingers found her clit, her head fell back, he bit her exposed throat, a series of distinct acts that blended into one ongoing whole. It was hot and ragged and sweaty and perfect as she bowed up under him and he rubbed his fingers in faster circles to push her over the precipice on which she stood. One more flick of his thumb and there she went, falling as she cried his name, and he fell after her, filling her, catching her, bringing her back home after five years away.

The cuddled together, a tangle of arms and legs. Tom would periodically kiss the top of her head or the palm of her hand, whatever he could bring to his mouth. “I should never have let you go,” he said to the ceiling.

Moira lifted her head so she could see him. Taking his face in her hands, she knelt over him. “No regrets. Just a fresh start. We’ll drown in the past if we let the regrets linger.”

He wrapped her long hair around his fingers and pulled her down for a kiss. “When did you get so smart?”

“Graduate school.”

He laughed, his head thrown back. “You got your money’s worth, didn’t you?”

“I hope so.”

“It occurs to me,” he sat up on his elbows, “that I have been a horrible date.”

“Uh, this,” she looked around at the bed, “was  _far_  from horrible. Like as far as to the Antipodes far away from horrible.”

“I meant it’s,” he looked around for a clock but didn’t find one, “zero dark thirty and I haven’t even fed you dinner yet.”

Moira laughed and climbed off of him. “I think I’ve got hobnobs in the kitchen. And I can put the kettle on.”

“No, I promised you a real date. The least I can do is get takeaway. Do you still love little hole in the wall places?”

“You remembered.”

“Every minute.” He kissed her again. “I know a place that should deliver, even this late.”

She listened to him place an order on the phone. She decided he had ever menu in London memorized. When he ended the call, he stretched out next to her on the bed again.

“So,” she smiled and licked her lips, “what should we do while we wait for the food.”

Tom smoothed her hair back from her face. “Tell me about how you got the idea for your book.”


	6. Chapter Five

Moira brushed a finger over Tom’s shoulder. Their late supper was over and they were lounging on the bed together, tired but not quite ready to sleep, to let unconsciousness take any more time from their newly reclaimed togetherness. “I don’t remember the freckles.”

“What?”

“Your freckles.” She connected them with her fingertip. “I don’t remember you having freckles.”

His own fingers were drifting over the slope of her hip from where her t-shirt had slid into the dip of her waist down to where the little zig-zig trim on the edge of her panties started. “Memories do fade over time.”

She smiled, half asleep, sated and satiated and drowsing in the warmth of Tom’s gaze. “You definitely surpassed my memories.”

Tom caught a strand of Moira’s hair and began to wind it around his finger. Her hair was the most obvious change about her, but he knew she had changed in other ways over the years they had been apart. “Tell me about your exes.”

“What?” She jerked back, fully awake. “No! Why?”

“Because I want to know about the people that shaped your heart while you were away.”

“Away?” She settled back down on her pillow. “You make it sound like I went on a vacation from you.”

“Call it an extended sabbatical. I always felt you’d come back to me. Tell me everything that I missed.”She shook her head, her eyebrows lowering. “You’re weird.”

“Yes I am. Tell me about who you are now by telling me your past.”

“Fine. This feels odd though. Rhys,” she rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling. How to explain Rhys other than he was the rebound she had dated with a fierce determination to make it work to prove to herself that she could be in a relationship and that not every man would leave her. “We dated off and on for about a year. My second year here in London. It was one of those things where it never felt natural.” Tom went up on his elbow so he could watch her face. “We always had to work at it, and there were constant misunderstandings, and we had fun together but we also aggravated each other. We decided we worked better as friends than as lovers but we still talk all the time. We’ve had lunch several times since I’ve been back and we bummed around the Tate last week.”

A vicious whale breached in Tom’s stomach, splashing the acid about with disregard to his feelings. “Just as friends.”

Her eyes twitched to the side to look at him. “Yes, silly. Just as friends.”

“I’m serious about you choosing.” Tom knew he was being ridiculous but he couldn’t make himself not reinforce the ground rules again.

“I know.” She ran a hand over his arm to reassure him. “I don’t flirt with him and I won’t flirt with anyone else. You’ve made your point very clear. No more games.”

He stroked his hand over her stomach, slipping up under her shirt and gripping her breast. “You’re mine.”

She shivered and then smiled. “I know. It’s positively medieval of you, but I find that I don’t mind.”

“Good.” He bent and kissed her. “Because you’re mine.”

“Now you’re acting like a two-year-old with a toy.”

“Don’t care. Mine.” He wrapped his arms around her stomach and rested his head on her chest.  “So tell me about Jax.”

Moira sighed and threaded her fingers through Tom’s hair. “Jax. What to say about Jax?” What to tell her new boyfriend about the best boyfriend she’d had? That as many silly fantasies she’d had about running into Tom on Prince Harry’s arm, she’d had an equal number about running into Jax. “He was wonderful. We got along really well, lived together for my last year here in London. If I’d stayed here instead of going back home for graduate school, we might still be together.”

Tom’s arms tightened around her. He hadn’t missed the way her stomach had clenched when she’d mentioned his name, the slightly wistful tone in her voice as she’d talked about what might have been. “Did you know that going back home? That you might lose him?”

“Yeah. And I went anyway. Cherise says that means I didn’t really love him, but I did. I needed to be American again for a bit. London is lovely and wonderful, but I don’t want to be a British writer and I felt that doing my undergrad and graduate work here would be limiting. I wanted a different look at literature and I missed real mountains and big trees and I missed my family too.”

“So why’d you come back?” He started drawing circles around her belly button, spiraling out and brushing over the striped fabric of her panties and under her t-shirt.

“Because I missed London. If there were some way of smooshing London and Oregon together without losing any of the particular charm of either in the process, I would be the happiest girl in the world.”

At least Jax hadn’t been part of her answer. But then again, neither had he. “Going to try and keep a foot in both worlds?”

“I don’t know how successful I’ll be at it.” She grabbed his hand and held it still. “I feel like I’m not really a human, that I’m all these pieces and parts that have been stuck together in the similitude of a person, but I can only access one of the fragments at a time. You know how you can listen to your favorite song over and over again and then all of a sudden you can’t stand it? Or you repeat a word so many times it stops sounding like a word and turns to nonsense? I feel like that’s my life. One long string of obsessive interests, discrete instances that fail to add up to a meaningful whole.”

He turned so his chin was resting on her stomach, staring up at her between her breasts. “That’s surprisingly melancholy.” He wove his fingers with hers and she squeezed.

“Something about two in the morning does that to a girl. Like, even right now, other than you, my apartment is full of things other people purchased and I don’t even know what to start changing because what if I love it now but will be sick of it in six months?”

He shrugged and crawled up her body so could rest his forehead against hers. “Then you get something else in six months.”

She rolled her eyes. “Easy for you to say, famous person. We aren’t all as fabulously wealthy as you are.”

“I’m not saying you should buy a Picasso, but if you don’t like the generically beautiful people in that frame out there, buy a poster of something you do like and reuse the frame. Until you can afford the Picasso.”

Her nose wrinkled. “I don’t really like Picasso.”

He gasped in mock horror. “You’re a heathen. You can take the girl out of America, but you can’t take the American out of the girl.” He shook his head reproachfully.

Moira grabbed the pillow next to her and walloped him with it. Tom snatched it from her hands and tossed it off the bed. Moira reached for another pillow but Tom grabbed her hands. “Next think you know, you’re going to be telling me that Shakespeare’s not your favorite writer.”

Moira laughed. “I believe I’ve told you that before.”

“I know. I was hoping more years of education would correct your misguided opinion.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Have you even read–,”

Her words were cut off by his lips and the next few syllables were distorted by his tongue. “Yes, I’ve read Pablo Neruda,” he laughed as he kissed her again. “Speaking of which, where is your bookshelf? I’ve seen your entire flat and there are no books.”

Moira pointed to some stacks of books on the floor next to her desk. Tom looked at them and then looked back at her. “Those are all your books?”

“All the ones in London. I have a ton on my tablet, though, and boxes and boxes back home. They’re not the cheapest thing to ship though, and I don’t have a ton of room, so my mom’s keeping them safe back in Portland for me.”

He looked back to the scant few dozen books piled on the floor. “Don’t you feel like part of your soul is missing though?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, souls don’t get a shipping discount.”

“I could have–,”

 She shoved her hand over his mouth. “No. I appreciate the offer, but you’re not shipping my stuff over or buying me furniture or any of that. You can pay for dates and things like that if you insist, but you are not being a sugar daddy.”

He kissed her palm and pulled her hand from his face. “I don’t mind.”

“I do, though. I know we’re like dating and stuff–,”

“You’re my girlfriend. I’m your boyfriend. We’ll hold hands in public and even kiss occasionally, and it will be splattered all over the internet, so you might as well get used to saying it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, you’re my  _boyfriend_.” She wasn’t able to contain the smile those words evoked. “But I don’t want you doing things that I wouldn’t expect from a boyfriend with a more normal income level.”

“I reserve the right to occasionally spoil you, but that’s acceptable.”

She snorted. “I’m glad you think so.”

He rolled over on his back and pulled her against him so that she was resting her head on his shoulder. There’d been nights he’d fallen asleep wishing for this exact moment. Ben had regularly taken the piss about how frequently he talked about Moira, pining over a girl he’d barely dated and hardly knew, someone to whom he’d never even said ‘I love you,’ but there had been something smoldering in his heart waiting for her to come back and blow into life again. Not that the last five years hadn’t been good, great even, for his career. But he’d never managed to completely silence the what-might-have-beens that grew particularly loud in the early hours before dawn.

“So, what were we talking about before I got all melancholy and barbarian?” Moira asked, when the silence had stretched to the point she felt uncomfortable.

“You were telling me about your boyfriends.”

“Ah. Right.” She shoved her hair out of her face. “The last one was Dylan. I dated him for about six months in grad school before I realized that his mysterious and moody aura wasn’t him being a writer, it was him being a dick. Since then, a few dates but nothing much.”

“You’ve been happy, though?” He had to ask the question that had haunted him for the last five years.

“Yeah. I’ve been happy.”

His arm tightened around her for a moment.

She looked up at him. “They were good years, Tom. You don’t need to regret the last five years because of that. They were good years and they were good for me.”

“I hope I can be good for you.”

“Well, you definitely were good for me earlier.” She stretched playfully, rubbing against him, a sound close to a purr vibrating in her throat.

He caught her arms as she stretched and slowly ground against her, lowering his mouth to hers as her lips parted on a breathy sigh at the feel of his hips shifting against hers. “Then let me be good for you again.”


	7. Chapter Six

Moira was sitting on the floor, reshelving returned books and attempting to restore some semblance of alphabetical order when a tablet was thrust in her face. The image, though slightly pixelated and taken in a dimly lit bar, was obviously a picture of Tom Hiddleston kissing a woman. A fairly good case could be made that the woman was her. This case was helped by the fact that it actually was her being kissed in the photo. She put on her best customer service smile and looked up at her co-worker. “Can I help you?”

“That’s you, isn’t it?” The accusing eyes were rimmed by messy eyeliner and little black spots of mascara dotted her upper eye lids. “That’s you snogging Tom Hiddleston right there out in public like he was a normal chap.”

“Are you not supposed to snog Tom Hiddleston like a normal chap?” She turned to her cart and pulled off the next stack of books that needed to be put back. “Do you think he’s kinky? Likes to be snogged on the belly button or his big toe or something?”

“No, you are not going to derail this conversation like you do every time you don’t want to own up to what you’ve been doing.” The tablet got laid down on top of the short bookshelf and Connie squatted down next to her. “You snogged Tom Hiddleston last night, didn’t you?” Huge eyes peered at her through thick glasses with heavy black frames dotted with tiny rhinestones, a few of which were missing.

Moira became quite preoccupied with putting all of the Henry and Mudge books in series order. Wouldn’t want the little tots to get confused, you know.Connie grabbed her hands and hissed, “You snogged Tom Hiddleston and you weren’t going to tell me?”

Moira looked around, hoping to find a legitimate reason to avoid this conversation, but there were no patrons in eye-view and no other co-workers to talk to.

“I don’t see why you’re so surprised. You haven’t told  _me_ about snogging anyone lately.” Fourteen goes  _after_  fifteen, thank you very much.

“I’ve been married fifteen years. I’m not sure what I do anymore actually counts as snogging.”

Moira sighed. Of course it had to be Connie that found the picture. She would be trawling the gossip pages at work, in the name of keeping up to date on pop culture information so as to provide exemplary service to our patrons who see the library as a source of information. Of course, Connie spewed her information at anyone who walked by, regardless of interest, and if she confirmed to gossip central that it was, indeed, her in that picture, enjoying a quite lovely kiss at the hands and mouth of one Mister Tom Hiddleston, the entire library would know before she got from Rylant to Sandberg. Couldn’t she have at least twenty-four hours of getting used to the idea that she and Tom were going to make another try for it, especially since they’d only had one date? Couldn’t she have a few more dates to ascertain that yes, he really was serious about her and not trying to make up for the way things had ended last time? He did seem to have an almost pathological need for people to like him, and she had made it very obvious that she had been less than impressed with the way they had split. And yet, she didn’t want to lie about it, especially since she had promised Tom she had chosen him, and he had made it very clear that they were girlfriend and boyfriend. Her sense of loyalty warred with her sense of self-preservation. “No comment.”

***

Tom was sitting at the desk across from Luke, eating one of the delicious pastries he had brought along with Luke’s favorite coffee. Luke was not eating or drinking. He was staring at Tom and tapping his fingers against the top of his desk.

Tom smiled and took another bite.

Luke tapped.

Tom took a swallow of coffee. “Beautiful weather we’re having today, don’t you think? I don’t think the sky has ever been that particular shade of blue before.”

Luke tapped.

Tom gave in and popped the remnants of the flaky pastry in his mouth, dusted the crumbs off of his trousers and leaned forward, resting his elbows on Luke’s desk. “Alright, show me.”

Luke stopped tapping and pushed his tablet across the surface of his desk so Tom could see the picture. “It’s all over social sites and the entertainment sites are picking it up.”

Tom looked at the picture of him kissing Moira at the bar last night. It was a fairly good shot of the two of them, nicely framed by the columns in the restaurant, though you couldn’t quite see Moira’s face. He should download it on to his phone. He glanced back up at Luke and squashed the smile that had taken up a permanent residence on his face since last night. “Yes, that’s me.” He knew what Luke was going to say and wanted to get the discussion over as quickly as possible.

“I know that’s you. I’m also fairly certain that’s Moira.”

“You’re very good at this game.”

Luke very carefully set the cup of coffee down on the cork coaster and turned it so the logo was perfectly in line with the edge of his desk. “It’s not a game, Tom. I’m already fielding calls from people wanting to know who she is and how long you two have been dating.”

“Her name is Moira Chamberlain and since last night.” He reached for another pastry but Luke slapped the box lid shut on his hand.

“I know her  _name_ , Thomas. I know everything about her. Do you think I’m an amateur? You’ve dated women for months without even taking them out in public, much less kissing them there.”

Tom pulled the box out from under Luke’s hand and opened it and perused the selection inside. He had very carefully chosen a delectable assortment at the bakery this morning as a preemptive peace offering and was torn between the apple strudel and a chocolate profiterole. “And see how much good that did me.” He decided on the profiterole.

“Is that really what you want me to tell people? You’ve been dating since last night?”

“I don’t think it’s anyone’s concern except for Moira and me.” He took a bite of the profiterole and wiped the whipped cream off of his lips with a finger. “So standard no comment stuff. But we will be continuing to date and I’m going to give Moira as normal of a life as possible while dating her, so plan on getting more calls.” He took another bite of his pastry.

“I really think it would be better for you if you slowed down the rate at which this relationship is proceeding. Don’t you think you’re rushing into it?”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve known her for five years already. I think finally getting around to kissing her in public may be moving a bit slow.” He carefully placed the remains of his treat in his mouth, picked up his box of pastry and went to go find a more deserving recipient.

***

Moira looked around the little restaurant with its generic Chinese decorations. Red walls were sprinkled with gold foil writing and elaborate fans warred for space with old calendars and masks and cat dolls manufactured expressly for the export market. She yanked her thumb from her mouth when she realized she was gnawing on her nail, a nervous habit she had picked up in graduate school and was determined to break. Instead, she sipped her tea and refused to give ground to the gnawing little worry in her stomach that Tom was standing her up. He was only fifteen minutes late. She was reaching for her phone to check for a missed message when he burst through the door.

“Sorry I’m late, darling.” He kissed her on the cheek before he sat opposite her, long legs spread wide under the laminate table. “Got caught up reading and lost track of the time and then ended up getting recognized on the street and signed a few autographs.”

Moira watched him run his hand through his hair trying to get it back in order as he huffed and puffed a bit. He must have run the last few blocks from the Underground. “I should get back in the habit of carrying a book with me is what you’re saying.”

“You’re not cross with me?” Her equanimous response was quite a surprise.

“Fifteen minutes late to supper is a small cross to carry for the privilege of snogging you. I’ve waited much longer in the past for much worse kissers.”

Tom laughed and leaned across the table to kiss her again. “We do more than snog, darling.”

“I know, but that was how it was described to me by one of my coworkers.” She rolled her eyes and unfolded her paper napkin, wishing it was cloth so she could flick it open dismissively, relegating Connie and her afternoon’s worth of squinty surveillance to the rubbish bin. “ _Apparently_ ,” she leaned forward and whispered dramatically, “I’m on the internet now.”

“And what was your response to your coworker?”

She sat back and placed the dissatisfactory paper napkin in her lap. “No comment.”

Tom shook his head and clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “No keeping secrets from me.”

Moira’s laughter drew the attention of some of the other patrons and Tom heard the familiar click of a camera. Moira didn’t seem to notice it. “No, that’s what I told her. ‘No comment.’”

“You’re a pro at this already.”

“You’re not mad?”

“What, that you didn’t confess all your intimate doings to someone you work with? You’re my girlfriend. I want you to know that. I want you to feel secure about your place in my life. You don’t have to tell anyone you don’t want to. In fact I told Luke today to keep ‘no commenting’ the queries he’s getting until we both feel ready to deal with it publicly.”

Moira let go of her necklace. “Oh that’s a relief.”

Tom ran his thumb over the back of her hand as it rested on the table. “Were you worried I’d be upset?”

She ducked her head, still not used to the world of emotions he could hold in his eyes and the intensity with which he evoked them in her. “I didn’t want you thinking that not hiring a skywriter meant I wasn’t choosing you.”

“No. I think you made it fairly evident last night that you chose me.”

Their flirtations were interrupted by the waitress coming to take their order. Tom went for the moo shu pork – they make it with day lily buds like in China, he told Moira – and she opted for the Peking duck.

“When’s your next day off?” Tom asked once the waitress had left.

“I actually have Saturday off, miracle of miracles.”

“Well,” he steepled his fingers in front of him, “what would you say to taking a drive with me down to Maytham Hall in Kent and wandering around the gardens?”

Her eyes lit up. Really they did, shifting from green to blue. “Those are the gardens that inspired  _The Secret Garden._ ” She took in his smile. “Oh, of course.” She blushed and looked down again. “You already knew that, hence the suggestion.”

“I did,” he confessed. “I thought besides getting to spend the day with you, having me driving should keep my hands off of you long enough for us to actually talk about your play.”

She looked up at him through her lashes and a smile curved her lips. “Are you having your problems keeping your hands off of me, honey?” She slipped her foot out of her shoe and let her toes wander up the inside of his pant leg.

Tom grinned and leaned forward so he could whisper. “Trust me, if it weren’t for the way that waitress keeps looking at us, I would have my hands all over you right now.”

Moira leaned in as well and Tom let his eyes fall for a moment to the cleavage the position revealed as her arms squeezed her breasts together. Just for a moment though. “Well, there is this thing called take away, you know.”

“Yes, but I find that it’s customary while dating to spend some time engaging in other activities besides fucking each other senseless.”

“Tom!” Moira glanced over her shoulder to make sure the waitress hadn’t heard his  _sotto voce_ comment before she continued. “You shouldn’t say things like that in public.”

“Can I say them tonight when we’re all alone?”

Her teeth caught the tip of her tongue as she glanced over at the waitress again, making sure they had as much privacy as possible in a restaurant with other diners surrounding them. “Are we going to be all alone tonight?”

“I certainly hope so.”

Her cheeks acquired a delightful shade of pink, and Tom watched bemusedly as she fiddled with her hair “Just checking. I know I’m not your only commitment.”

“You are my only evening commitment, at least for the near future.” He decided to stop flirting so ostentatiously so she could calm down. “Now, tell me. How big of a stage are you imagining?”

Moira blinked several times as her brain switched gears. “Do they come in standard sizes? See, this is where I need someone’s help who knows the theater and doesn’t simply attend it like I do.”

“Well, darling, if I may be so bold, I think you’ve come to the right place.” Back to flirting with her. He couldn’t help himself. He placed his hand over hers and his rakish smile changed as he saw her hesitation. Her teeth scraped over her bottom lip and her fingers closed around one of her ever present necklaces as she gazed at him intently, like he was an antique manuscript she was trying to decipher. He stayed still under her eyes, letting all the artifice with which any person arms themselves before they step out into the world fade away, leaving himself bare before her. “You’ve come to the right place, Moira.”

Moira shooed thoughts of Jax away, not wanting to dwell on the past mistakes she had made with him. Here with Tom she might have regrets about what had happened, but at least she didn’t feel like she had been in the wrong. She let go of her necklace and dropped her hand back into her lap. Her other hand she turned under his so their palms were pressed together, fingertips on the others’ wrist. “You know what? I think I have.”


	8. Chapter Seven

Moira woke up Saturday morning to the sound of rain hitting the bedroom windows. Only slightly saddened that their trip to the gardens wouldn’t happen today, she snuggled back into Tom’s body and closed her eyes. It was like having an ergonomically designed space heater in her bed. His skin was so warm, and his proclivity for sleeping naked and making sure she slept in as little as possible as well meant that she was cozy from head to toe.

The rain formed a lovely syncopated rhythm against the glass, dancing around the steady sound of Tom’s breathing and the beat of his heart. Moira was in no hurry to go back to sleep, or rather, she felt like she was in a dream and didn’t want to wake up. A week ago, hell, four  _days_  ago, waking up with Tom in her bed and the faint scent of sex still hanging in the air was the last place she would have thought to be. She’d spent the last month harassing herself to go see Luke and drop off that manuscript and that one action had shaken up her entire life.

No, that was being overly dramatic, a tendency she had been trying to reign in. She still worked at the library, she was still working towards her first book contract, she still lived in a tiny one room flat with most of her possessions half a world away. But she had Tom again, and while last time she had fallen into his bed with little thought, this time she had jumped with her eyes wide open. In the years they’d been apart, she’d followed his career and press feeding frenzy that surrounded him wherever he went. She’d followed the rise and fall of his three relationships in that time, first with hurt in her heart, but later as she had found Jax and they had lived happily together, with hope that he could find someone that made him happy as well. She knew that she was living on borrowed time right now, getting to enjoy him without her name being made public. She knew that he would be gone frequently and for long periods of time. So these few days she didn’t mind ignoring the rest of the world and luxuriating in the warmth and humor of his personality, and the delightful sensation of being the sole focus of his attention, as overwhelming as it sometimes was.Eventually she drifted off to sleep, only to find herself waking up an indeterminate amount of time later with no Tom in her bed. His trousers were still on the floor where she’d left them last night so he couldn’t have gone far. Then she heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on. Smiling, she reached for her cell phone to check the time. Nine thirty. Still early for a Saturday off. She tapped on the messages icon and flipped through the texts. Two of them took her by surprise.

The first was from Luke. “I see you two went out for Chinese food last night. Make my job a little easier and tone down the PDA, please?” He’d forwarded the pictures in question, one of her and Tom together at the table where she was completely identifiable, and a second where they were kissing. And not a simple peck, either. She sighed loudly and thanked the god of librarians that she wasn’t working this weekend. At least that gave her a few days off before she had to face Connie. She’d have to talk to Tom as well. She didn’t want to get on Luke’s bad side, or any more on his bad side than she already was.

The second one was from Jax. “Hey gorgeous, I see you’re back in London. Tom Hiddleston, huh? That’s a blast from the past. I’m judging from the picture Grant sent me that he’s not in your past anymore, but either way, I’d love to see you again. What do you say, lunch at Ottolenghi’s for old time’s sake?”

Moira sank back against the pillows like she’d had the air knocked out of her. She hadn’t heard from Jax in months. Things had ended peacefully between them, even if he hadn’t understood her need to go back to Oregon. They’d tried to make it work long distance, but she hadn’t wanted to let him pay for plane tickets all the time, and eventually the time apart had worn them down. She was ashamed of her reluctance to contact him, knowing that it would lead to disclosures that painted her in a bad light and cravenly refusing to face up to her own wrongdoings. And now he wanted to meet her at Ottolenghi’s. That had been their special lunch spot when she’d had a long gap between classes and he’d blocked out a few hours of his schedule. The coconut macarons had been their favorite. She worked her fingers through her hair as she reread his message, trying to comb out some of the tangles last night’s entertainment had put in them. If only her thoughts were so easy to order.

Tom walked back into the bedroom, gloriously naked, and sprawled on the bed next to her. “I was going to make you breakfast, but you have only have two apples, an egg, and three carrots that are going soft in your fridge.”

Moira locked her phone and put it back on the nightstand. She’d think about Jax later. “Yes, it seems that you’ve severely cut into my time to do pedestrian things like go to the market.”

Tom crawled on top of her and kissed between her breasts and up her neck until he got to her mouth. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to take you out to breakfast then.”

Moira kissed him back before she answered. “You don’t need to do that. There’s a fantastic little market the next block over. I can go get some things.”

“I want to take you out though. There are few things better than Saturday brunch with a gorgeous woman.”

This man could sell a bridge to someone living in the middle of the Sahara. She acceded to his proposal. Remembering the message from Luke, she added, “You’re going to have to change clothes though. Can’t get photographed the morning after wearing the same thing as the night before.”

“You saw the cameras last night?”

“No, I saw the pictures this morning.”

Tom lifted himself off of her. He was surprised that her first instinct upon awakening was to see if their date last night was on the internet. She’d never seemed interested in that kind of exposure. “You went looking for pictures?”

Moira sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed so her back was to Tom. She really didn’t want to be the cause of a fight. “No,” she said softly. “Luke sent them to me.”

The rigid set of her shoulders made it obvious he hadn’t sent the pictures to say, ‘You looked so cute last night!’ “What did he say, darling?”

Moira ran her fingers through her hair once more. “He asked me to tone down the PDA so it would make his life easier.”

There was silence for several seconds before Tom responded. “Why don’t you go take a shower so you don’t hear me yelling at Luke and then we’ll go to my house so I can change and you know, brush my teeth and things like that, and then we’ll go out to brunch?”

Moira turned so she could see him. The muscle in his jaw spasmed. “I’m sorry for causing problems for you.”

“You’re not the one causing problems, darling.”

“Good, because I really do like being able to kiss you when I want.” Moira leaned over and kissed him before she slid out of bed. She turned on the shower so she didn’t have to hear what Tom said to Luke. He’d been such a huge part of Tom’s life for so long, and even if Tom said it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t escape the conclusion that if it weren’t for her, there would be less for Luke to be worrying about.

She’d just gotten the water to the right temperature and stepped in when Tom joined her. “I was thinking that if we showered together we could save time and get to breakfast sooner.”

Moira nodded. “Right. No other reason for wanting to join me in the shower at all, is there?” His eyes hadn’t made it above her collarbone yet.

Tom’s hands closed on her hips and then slowly slid up her sides, gliding over the slick skin and brushing over the sides of her breasts. He pressed them together and let the water fall over them before bending to rub the scruff of his chin against her generous curves. “Absolutely none whatsoever.”

A few minutes later, as her leg was hooked up around his thigh and his hands were on her bum, he lifted his mouth from her neck. “Do you know what’s even better than a Saturday brunch with a gorgeous woman?”

“Hmmm?” Moira couldn’t figure out why he was talking about food at a time like this.

“Saturday lunch with a gorgeous woman.”

Moira’s head fell further back as she laughed. “I agree. Now let’s work up an appetite.”


	9. Chapter Eight

The rain was still drizzling as Tom held the door open for Moira as they exited the small café where they had enjoyed a late brunch. A man waited for her to exit so he could enter, a newsboy cap keeping the rain off of his head. Moira looked up to smile an apology for impeding him when she stopped.

“Jax?”

The man’s face lit up as he recognized her. “Moira!” He pulled her into a hug and under the awning so they were both out of the rain. “Hey, gorgeous.” Tom let the door fall shut as he surveyed the sight of Moira in the arms of her ex-boyfriend. He’d seen pictures of him before on the nights where he’d given in to the voices in his head and gone through Moira’s social media accounts, a glass of wine in one hand, expensive chocolate in the other. He’d watched them fall in love, go on holidays together, pictures of her stuff in boxes on moving day, and then unpacked in Jax’s apartment. A photo of both of their toothbrushes in the same cup on the bathroom counter. An anniversary dinner. A second anniversary dinner. He’d never talked to the man but had gotten to know him through comments on pictures and the way Moira had talked about him, by the titles of books he bought for her, by the way he had rubbed her feet while she wrote her senior thesis.

“What… what are you doing here?”

He grinned, his perfect white teeth standing out against the short beard covering his jaw. “That picture of you made me remember all those rainy Saturdays we’d spend here over the paper and pancakes smeared with Vahlronna or prawn omelets. I thought I’d come and see if they were as good as I remembered.” He had a folded newspaper tucked under his arm.

She had ordered a prawn omelet, and Tom had ordered the chocolate pancakes at her suggestion. Tom watched the wistful smile Jax’s words evoked creep slowly across Moira’s face. “They are.” Tom cleared his throat and Moira flushed. “Sorry, Jax this is Tom. Tom, this is Jax.”

The two men shook hands, both of them possibly putting more force in their grip than was strictly necessary. “It’s nice to meet you, Jax.”

“You too. I have to admit, I was surprised to see that Moira had gotten back together with you considering how poorly things ended last time.”

“Yes, well she decided  _I_ was worth a second chance.”

Jax nodded politely, but Tom didn’t miss the subtly stiffening of the man’s jaw. Jax turned back to Moira. “Did you end up getting one of the flats I suggested?”

“I did. Thank you for your help.” She touched the lapel of his coat.

Jax smiled. “Let me know if you ever need anything else. I don’t want to keep you two, but call me next week. We should catch up. You can tell me what else has changed besides your hair.”

“Of course.” She stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek. Her hand rested on his shoulder as she looked up into his face. “It was good to see you again.”

Jax took one of the wisps of Moira’s hair that was curling around her face and tucked it behind her ear. “You too.”

Tom draped his arm over her shoulders as they walked away. When they were back in the car, Tom inserted the key in the starter but didn’t turn it. His fingers went white around the steering wheel. “You took me to the café you used to go to with your ex-boyfriend on a rainy Saturday and ordered us the same food you used to eat with him.”

“I thought you’d like the chocolate pancakes. You love chocolate.”

“The same way Jax did?”

She gestured helplessly. “They’re good pancakes.”

Moira watched Tom’s jaw grinding, a muscle in his cheek twitching over and over. “What picture was he referring to?” he finally asked.

“He said a friend of his sent him a picture of us kissing.”

“When did he say that?”

Moira sighed and closed her eyes. “He texted me this morning.”

Tom’s head snapped around. “You’re texting him?”

Moira’s eyes widened at the snarl in his voice “He texted  _me_ ,” she hurried to reassure him.

“You didn’t mention it.”

Moira’s own jaw ground to the side, frustration building up inside her at Tom’s badgering. “I was too busy getting felt up in the shower. And I might have had my mouth full after that with something. Let me think, what was in my mouth? Oh that’s right. Your cock.”

His mouth flexed in a motion that vaguely resembled a smile as he remembered the way her sumptuous lips had looked wrapped around his rampant shaft. “He helped you pick out your flat?”

Moira ran a hand through her hair and stared out the window at the grey sky, resigned to being cross-examined for the next while. Rain spattered over the window and she watched the drops slide down the glass. She picked two droplets to have a race to the bottom and predicted the one on the left one would win. It gave her something to do to distract her from her urge to swear. “I emailed him when I was planning how to move back. He’s an architect for a firm that does residential infill and urban redevelopment, and I asked him if any of his projects had an opening that I could afford, and he gave me the number of the leasing agent.”

“You mean he designed the building you live in. Your ex-boyfriend designed your flat?”

“And a whole bunch of apartments other people live in too. It’s no big deal. He’s the reason they let me have the furniture which has been an enormous help for me.”

Tom sucked his lips between his teeth and bit down for a moment. “So everything in your flat is because of him?”

“It’s not like he hand-picked it, Thomas. He’s an architect. I’m sure someone else is in charge of choosing pretentious art for the walls.”

If he ground his jaw any harder, he was going to break a tooth. “He’s the reason you have everything in your flat but you won’t let me have your books sent over.”

“He didn’t spend any money. He just made a few phone calls.”

“But you went to him when you didn’t go to me.”

Moira dug her nails into her palms to keep from screaming. The pain let her focus on something other than her desire to give a right hook to that perfectly square jaw of his. She took a deep breath and let it out, counting to ten before she said anything. “I didn’t know how to contact you. And besides, your job has very little to do with anything resembling housing.”

Tom twisted the key too long, grinding the engine. He pulled out into the road, earning a blaring horn and screeching tires from the car he cut off. Moira scrambled for her seat belt.

Moira gripped the armrest tightly, her fingers digging into the leather of the arm rest, as he swerved in and out of lanes, his speed undeterred by traffic or slick roads. “You’re driving like a maniac, Tom. Where are we even going?”

“We’re going to a store where I am going to buy you new bedding because I’m not going to fuck you on the sheets another man provided.”

Moira’s eyes flared with anger and she stiffened like she’d been slapped. “You’re being insane.”

The look he gave her was one of pure poison. “Perhaps. Just be glad I’m not calling a moving company.”

“You don’t have the right to do that.”

“Why not? Do you want Jax to know where you live?”

“Why are you so fixated on this? There’s nothing going on!”

“He finds you a flat, furnishes it for you, he texts you and you don’t tell me, you take me to the restaurant you two used to go to and you have me eat the same food. I feel like a stand-in for who you really want to be with.”

“If I wanted to be with Jax, I would be with him. And I’m sorry, but you asked me where I wanted to go to eat and the food there is really good. You made your orgasm face eating pancakes, so don’t deny it.”

Tom smiled as he thought of the melted chocolate and berry coulis on his tongue. “They were delectable.”

“And it’s not like Jax wants to get back together. I hadn’t talked to him at all since I rented it, but he could have easily found out I was here again through his work and he never contacted me. He texted me this morning to say, ‘See you’re with Tom. Let’s do lunch some time.’ So he waited until he knew I was in a relationship to even contact me. So calm your balls.”

Tom snorted. “Calm my balls.”

“Yes. That’s what I said. Calm your balls. It’s like being scent marked by a cat around you right now.”

Tom took a deep breath and then another. He forced his fingers to relax around the steering wheel and laid off the accelerator enough so that they were merely travelling at a stupidly fast rate instead of death-defying. “I’m still buying you sheets,” he muttered like a recalcitrant child.

“And I’m going out to lunch with Jax next week,” Moira responded, tired of dealing with his temper tantrum.

“No, you’re not,” Tom declared.

“Yes, I am,” she shot back. “We’re just going to catch up.” She owed him a lunch. She owed him an explanation.

“Can I come?”

“No, that would be strange and awkward.”

The muscle in his jaw twitched again. “Fine. But I’m buying you really high thread-count sheets. Like the ones the queen sleeps on.”

Moira eyed him skeptically. “You know what kind of sheets the queen sleeps on?”

“No, but I’m sure Google does. Shakespeare, what kind of sheets does the queen of England sleep on?”

“Searching…” the computerized voice said.

“You named your in car computer Shakespeare?” Moira whispered.

“That information does not seem to be part of the public record, sir.”

“Oh well. I’m going to buy you the best sheets I can find.”

Moira gave up and sank back into the comforting embrace of the seat. “Fine, if that’s what you need to not be crazy anymore.”

Hours later they finally stumbled back into Moira’s apartment, Tom’s arms full of bags. They had gone to four different stores to find bedding that Tom deemed acceptably luxurious that Moira didn’t think was ugly. And of course, it hadn’t been just sheets that he purchased, but blankets and a comforter and new pillows as well. Moira had bought three heavily engraved silver candleholders that looked like they would have been at home in a bazaar in Marrakech and smacked Tom’s hand away when he tried to pay for them as well.

Moira flopped down on the newly made bed, into the luxurious feel of a heavy down comforter and oodles of pillows. Tom crawled onto the bed next to her and stretched out, his body partly overlapping hers. “Isn’t this nicer?”

Moira rolled her eyes but nodded. “Yes, this is very nice, even if I still don’t get why it was such a big deal.”

“He had you for two years. I don’t want him to have you anymore.”

Moira shoved at his shoulder, forcing him off of her. “He doesn’t have me. I’m not an object for either one of you to own.”

“I know, but you were with him for years.” Her rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “You lived together. You had traditions and routines with him. He had a side of the bed you shared.”

He voice was wistful and Moira’s heart softened. “How about when you sleep over here, you sleep on that side.” She nodded to the side of the bed furthest away from the door. “That way if someone decides to find their inner Romeo and climb the balcony, you can fight them off.”

Tom looked at the glass door and then back at his girlfriend. He propped himself up on his elbow so he could see her face better. “Should I bring my sword? I can leave it by the side of the bed in case I need it to protect you from inferior Shakespeareans.”

Moira reached up to let her fingers drift over his cheek and jaw, softer now than when they had been fighting. “Whose will you bring? Henry or Nicholls or Coriolanus or Arthur?”

“I can bring Excalibur if you like.” They had let him keep it at the end of filming the mini-series and it had a prized place in his library at home.

Moira’s fingers drifted from his jaw down his throat, brushing against the sensitive skin on his neck. “Do I get to play with it?”

Tom rolled so he was on top of her again and traced a fingertip over her lips. “That’s an enormous sword. Maybe you should work up to it with something a _bit_  smaller.” He bent and kissed her, his tongue tasting the sensitized skin.

“Mmmm, do you have any suggestions for what I could train with?”

“I think I could, uh,” he ground against her hard enough to make her eyes fall shut as her thighs spread further apart, her hips tilting up to provide the perfect sheath for him, “come up with something.”


	10. Chapter Nine

Moira was reading the menu, noticing that every dish had changed, when a familiar voice by her ear said, “Hey, gorgeous, buy you a drink?”

Moira smiled but didn’t turn to see him. “I thought that was my line.” Cherise had gotten tired of her complaints about her sad, sad social life after she and Rhys had finally called it quits and dared her to go up to the best looking man in the bar and buy him a drink. Fortified with a Jack and coke, she had.

Jax folded himself into the chair opposite her. “And what a line it was.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to take me up on the offer.”

His wide grin was welcoming and familiar. His curls were a bit longer on top and a bit shorter on the sides than they had been when they were dating, and his hatred of shaving had turned into a short and well-groomed beard. She wanted to touch it and see if it was as soft as it looked. He was well-dressed too, like always, with a leather jacket she didn’t remember over a shirt and tie. “A gorgeous woman offering to buy me a drink? You had me wrapped around your little finger before they made us leave at closing time.”

He’d brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it while looking her in the eyes before helping her into a cab. It wasn’t the Jack and coke that had made her heart feel like it was flying on the drive home that night. “And you had the excellent manners to call the next night.”

“How long did we talk? Three hours?”

“Closer to four.”

“We always could talk.”

Moira looked away. They always could talk, there until the end, when she was in Oregon and he was in London, and he wanted to fly out for a visit and she kept putting him off. The phone calls had gotten shorter, more terse, until it had been a week since they had talked, and then two. She turned back to him. “They still have the coconut macarons available,” she said brightly, trying to stuff the melancholy away.

Jax took both menus and put them on an unoccupied chair. “Talk to me, Moira. What happened with us?”

She fidgeted with the silverware on the table, making sure it was all perfectly aligned. This had been the reason she had agreed to lunch; she knew she owed him this information. And yet, each word choked in her throat like a dry crust of bread. “We broke up.”

The waitress came by to take their orders and since he hadn’t even looked at the menu and she had forgotten what she’d read, she simply ordered the fish and he ordered the steak. Moira hoped that he would drop the topic, but he didn’t.

“Why, though? I never understood it. I thought we were happy and you were applying to graduate schools here in England and getting accepted and then out of the blue you told me you’d been accepted at Oregon and were moving back to the states. I didn’t know you’d even applied there. You hadn’t told me.”

She darted a look at him. Two years and there was still pain in his eyes. It was old pain though. Pain that lingered because she’d denied him the information that would have made it go away, allowed him to heal or given her a chance to fix it. Two years of letting him hurt and she still couldn’t spit out the whole story. “I’d applied to Oregon because my mom was sick. You remember how she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I applied so I could be with her if it turned out to be a long battle.” That was the truth. She had made a plan based on the probability of her mother dying. That’s not something she had ever considered growing up; that your plans could be determined because of how much you loved someone. She’d always thought herself completely free to make her own destiny. That little bit of painful wisdom had terrified her.

“I thought they caught all of it with the surgery and that one round of chemo, though.”

“They did.”

“And you knew that before you decided to go there, didn’t you?” He reached across the table and took her hand. Waiting a moment to see if she would pull hers away, he threaded his fingers through hers. Moira felt the familiar callous on his middle finger. The one on her own was a match, even though hers was from ink pens and his was from drafting pencils. He brushed his thumb against her hand. “Why did you go?”

Moira knew she should take her hand away. Tom would consider this a betrayal and she had sworn up and down that they were just meeting as old friends. She couldn’t bear to tell Tom why she had to have this lunch with him. Jax deserved that knowledge first. It was better to let Tom think that she and Jax had drifted apart because of distance rather than to admit that breaking up with Jax had been the biggest mistake of her life. She closed her eyes, biting unconsciously at the inside of her bottom lip. The air in her lungs seemed to lack any oxygen as her chest began to hurt. “I found the ring,” she whispered. She waited for a response but there was none. She finally opened her eyes and looked at him again.

“It was ugly enough to make you flee to a different continent?”

He had always masked his hurt with humor. “No. It was perfect. If you had sent me out ring shopping, it’s the ring I would picked for myself. I panicked. It felt like you knew me better than I knew myself, and I was twenty three and had no idea who I really was and the idea of forever freaked me out and I ran. The idea of being permanently connected to someone else freaked me out. I ran away because I was scared of settling down and not doing all those things I had promised myself I was going to do, and I ran away from you like a child and I wasn’t back home a month before I realized what a mistake I’d made.”

He let go of her hand and sat back in his chair. “Then why didn’t you say something?”

Moira rested her elbows on the table and hid her face in her hands. Now was the time to fall on her pride, no matter how much it hurt. “I was embarrassed and I knew I’d hurt you, and I knew if I let you come visit I would drop out of my program and stuff myself in your suitcase and make you take me home with you. And I couldn’t do that. My parents had paid for my tuition and I couldn’t let them down and it was like living in a blender. Everything was wrong and I didn’t know how to fix it so I slogged through.”

When she dared to look at him, there was half a smile hiding under his beard. “My stubborn girl.”

“Except this time it was over something that mattered.”

“You’re actually admitting that it doesn’t matter that I use sea salt instead of kosher when I’m salting pasta water?”

“Not when it’s compared to screwing up what we have. Had,” she immediately corrected herself.

The waitress chose that moment to bring their food, much to Moira’s relief, though even under his short beard she could see the set of his jaw that meant he wasn’t through talking about it. She decided to change the topic. “So,” she started, as he cut into his sirloin, “what have you been up to in the last few years?”

The chatter was easy as they caught up on the less emotionally volatile parts of their history. When she was about half way through her meal, she picked up her plate and held it out to him before pulling it back slightly. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to do that anymore.”

He smiled as he took her plate and gave her his own. “Just like old times.”

Moira looked down at the plate, the sirloin and mushrooms and some sort of obscure vegetable mash, and forced herself to be an adult. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Jax. You deserved better than the treatment you got from me.”

“I wish you would have talked to me about finding the ring. I was waiting until you decided where you were going to go to graduate school to propose. I didn’t want it to be this thing where I’d asked you to marry me and that was going to limit your choices. It was an ‘I love you and the next two years might have to be long distance but we’ll make it work.’ And then it was Oregon out of the blue and you couldn’t even explain why and I didn’t know what to do.” For the first time he sounded angry.

“I don’t know what to do now other than saying I’m sorry over and over.”

“The apologies don’t really do much to fix it though. You didn’t even tell me you were back in London. I had to find out from Grant sending me a picture of you kissing another man.”

Moira couldn’t meet his eyes. The other patrons became fascinating to look at as her fingers grabbed the pendant on her necklace, tugging it back and forth on the chain. “You knew I was back. I asked for your help finding a place.”

“You told me you might be moving back and I’m not in the habit of going through leasing records to see who’s signed a contract. Especially with you, beautiful. You’ve never liked people prying into your life.”

“I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to avoid this conversation.”

He pushed away the plate in front of him and crossed his arms over his chest. “You wanted to avoid it more than you wanted to see me again?” he asked in frustration.

“Apparently not or I wouldn’t be here, would I?” she shot back.

He glared at her and she glared right back. Neither one of them were good at backing away from an argument. Luckily they hadn’t fought often.

Jax was the first to drop his eyes. “I hate that you’re already with someone,” he muttered.

She had believed that Tom hadn’t wanted her back. That had made her believe that Jax wouldn’t want her back either, especially not after how she had failed to even end things properly. “You’re not seeing anyone?”

“I’ve been dating but haven’t found anyone worth teaching how to smoke a cigar.” She’d struggled the first time she had attempted to smoke a cigar on her own, so he’d held her on his lap and fed her mouthfuls of smoke, teaching her how much she could hold at a time, and then watching her learn to exhale it in a slow steady stream. They’d gotten through most of his cigar that night being distracted by other matters.

“I never could make it look as good as you did.”

“You looked pretty damn good.”

Moira had to look away from him again, away from him and the memories in his eyes and the heat that prickled along the back of her neck in response.

Jax cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re with him now and that crossed a line.”

They both ate silently until Jax said, “Just two questions and I’ll let it drop. Why did you go back to him? Why did he deserve another chance and I didn’t? Six weeks versus two years, Moira.”

Moira put her fork down and pushed the plate away. She couldn’t concentrate on the food enough to appreciate it. “It’s not that he deserved another chance instead of you. I wrote a play and I was hoping he would take a look at it and I took it to his publicist’s office and he happened to be there.”

“I thought you were going to write books.”

Tom may have given her the courage to think that she could actually write. Jax was the one who had convinced her that her idea of pursuing an advanced degree in creative writing wasn’t stupid. He’d read her writing samples and given her feedback on which ones to send in as part of her portfolio with her applications. He’d bought her a dozen of her favorite pen. “I did. I wrote a novel and I’ve written some short stories that’ve been published.”

“I’d love to read them.”

“I can email you copies if you’re serious and not just being polite.”

Wicked laughter sparked in his eyes as he grinned at her. “When have you ever known me to just be polite?”

Moira’s memories were flooded with memories of his razor sharp wit and humor. “Never. Okay, I’ll email them to you, but ummm,” she hid behind her hand again, “any similarities between the main character of my book and you are strictly coincidental.”

A cocky smile took over his face. “I’m in your book?”

She waved a finger at him. “Only coincidentally.”

“Now I’m even more eager to read it.”

She finished her water and wished she’d ordered something stronger, even if she did have to go back to work after this. “So that’s how Tom and I sort of happened. It turns out that he didn’t blow me off all those years ago. His publicist screened my calls and didn’t give them to him.”

“Well, that makes me hate him a little less.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You don’t hate him.”

“A little bit. As long as he’s making you happy though, I can’t completely hate him.”

Moira snorted. “He’s not very happy with me right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m here with you. He didn’t want me to meet you for lunch and when I insisted, he wanted to come with me.”

“Well, I’m sure he’s a fascinating conversationalist, but I’m glad you told him no. It was nice to catch up and finally understand what happened.”

“It’s good to see you again. Tell Grant hello for me.”

“He’ll probably be texting me any minute to find out how lunch went.”

Moira’s brows rose. She was surprised, even knowing that Jax and Grant were best friends. “He knows we’re having lunch?”

A bit of color came to his cheeks as he nodded. “He dropped by my office this morning to make sure I was dressed according to his standards for meeting the ex.”

“Well, you do look very dapper. I like the jacket.”

Jax heaved a sigh and shook his head. “It’s Grant’s. He thought I looked boring without it.”

Moira giggled. It was like the last two years had never happened. “Well, that’s Grant for you. No one’s ever dressed up to his requirements.”

“I’m going to tell him you hated the jacket, just to get back at him for sending that picture with the caption, ‘No wonder she didn’t look you up when she came back. She traded up to the luxury model.’”

Pain lines etched themselves across her forehead. “That’s not how it was.”

Jax reached across the table and took her hand. “I know. Besides, I don’t think he’s a trade up. Just across.”

His hand felt so familiar on hers. Familiar and warm and comfortable. “You’re right, you know. You make me very happy.”

“Make or made?”

Moira cursed the slip of her tongue, cursed him for picking up on it, cursed him again for asking her about it. “I need to get back to work.”

“Of course.”

A few minutes later, Jax waved down a cab for her and the box of macarons she’d gotten to take home to satisfy Tom’s sweet tooth. He took her hand and held it up to his mouth and kissed it. “I look forward to reading your novel.”

She was about to respond when a familiar vehicle parked across the street caught her eye. “Hold this, will you?” She thrust the box of macarons at Jax and scurried across the street between traffic.  Tom saw her coming and rolled down the window, saving her from having to pound on it. “What are you doing here?”

Tom smiled his most charming smile. “I thought I’d drop by and see if you wanted a ride back to work.”

“Liar,” she hissed. “You were spying on me. If you’d wanted to give me a ride, you would have made yourself known and you wouldn’t be wearing that ridiculous looking hat and sunglasses when it’s overcast.”

“I wanted to make sure -,” his voice dwindled from the force of his glare.

“What?” she snarled. “Make sure of what, Tom?”

“That nothing happened,” he ended weakly.

“I told you I chose you. Do you think I’m running around cheating on you behind your back?”

“No, but…” his voice faded into silence.

“But what?” she spit out.

“What if he still has feelings for you?”

“What if he does? I gave you my word. I still have feelings for him. That doesn’t change the fact that I chose you. I needed to apologize to him for the way I ended things, and I did that, and we don’t have any future plans to get together for lunch or dinner or anything else. You know why?”

Tom ran his fingers over the Jaguar logo in the center of the steering wheel, too cowed to look at her. “Because you chose me.”

“Yes. I did. So it doesn’t matter that a part of my heart wishes that I’d been brave enough to call him as soon as I landed in Heathrow because I didn’t and everyone has regrets. But you move on, Tom. That’s what being an adult is about. You move on. And when it came down to being brave enough to contact one of the men out of my past, I contacted you. But if you  _ever_  pull a stunt like this again, I swear to god I will put you right back in my past so fast your head will spin.”

She whirled on her heel and stomped back across the road. Jax was watching with concern. “You alright, love?”

“I’m fine.”

His eyes were still fixed on the Jaguar parked down the street. “Is that Tom?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t figure out why she felt so embarrassed when she wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong.

“And I know that look on your face so I’m not going to ask any more questions. Do you need me to do anything?”

She was practically vibrating she was so angry, but there was nothing he could do about that. “No. It’s under control.”

He nodded once and handed her back the box of macarons. “It was good to see you again.”

“You too. And I’ll send you the book.”

“I’d like that.” He helped her into the cab and shut the door for her.

Moira put the box on the seat next to her. They’d be going into the break room when she got back to work, not home with her this evening. As the cab pulled back into traffic, she watched Tom sit in his Jag until the cab passed. She refused to turn around to see what he did next.


	11. Chapter Ten

Moira was eating the dinner she had packed with her when her phone rang. Grateful no one else was in the break room at the moment, she answered Tom’s call.

“Hello, darling. What do you think about you coming over to my place for dinner? I’ll cook something up for us and then we can watch a film or something.”

“I’ve got my writing group tonight.”

“I didn’t know you belonged to a writing group.”

She closed her laptop. She’d finished making notes on the last one of the submissions for this week’s discussion. “Every Wednesday night for three hours.”

“Can I pick you up after? Give you a ride home?”

“Betsy gives me a ride home after. She lives out my end of the city too, and I’m going to be exhausted and want to go to sleep.”

There was a long pause. “Are you still mad at me about this afternoon?”

“A little, but this isn’t about that. I have writing group and then I need to go to sleep because I have work in the morning. Don’t you have work or something you should be doing?”

“Not really.”

“Have you made revision notes on my manuscript?” They had been meant to discuss it on the way to Kent on Saturday but when that hadn’t happened, he hadn’t mentioned it again and she was dying for some concrete feedback on which areas he thought were rough and needed the most work.

“No. I guess I could do that. Do you mind if I give a copy to Zac? He’s getting in town Sunday for press and the premiere of his film on Tuesday.”

She rubbed her knuckles against her forehead, trying to drive the memory of a lazy committee member out of her head. He was doing this out of the goodness of his heart so getting mad at him would be counterproductive. She would focus on the positive part of his statement, his desire to share her work with a friend. “Why would Zac want to read it?”

“I was thinking he would make a good Caleb.”

“Caleb’s British.”

“Zac can do an accent.”

Moira counted to five in her head before she answered. “Or we could get a British actor. I think there are some of those around here somewhere.”

“So what, you want to do an open audition and get a bunch of kids fresh out of drama school?”

“Why not? You were fresh out of drama school at one point.”

“You’re a brand new writer. You’re going to need as many big names as possible attached to this if you want to get the funding. Zac’s got a good stage reputation. Trust me on this.”

Maybe she was naïve for wanting her work to succeed on its own merits instead of who she knew, but the idea of Tom getting a bunch of his friends to star in her play was like someone dripping icy slime down her spine. The thought alone was enough to make her shudder. “I’m not aiming for the Old Vic or the National Theater, Tom. I know that’s out of my league.”

“Well, if you go along with my advice, I can get you access to a theatre that otherwise wouldn’t look at you.”

Another count, this time to ten. Wasn’t this why she had showed him the play in the first place? For the advice? She should be thankful he was looking at it at all, much less helping it move forward. “Fine. Show it to Zac.”

“Good choice.”

She couldn’t leave well enough alone. She never could. “I’m not guaranteeing him the part though.”

“So you want creative control?”

“At least a say in it. It’s my play.”

“But I’m the producer.”

She wondered for a moment how high she could count before he thought she had hung up. They didn’t even have a final draft of the play yet and he was already going in a different direction than she wanted. This wasn’t anything they had ever discussed in graduate school. Usually when book rights were purchased, someone else entirely adapted it for the screen, and most authors had no say in what happened.  If that was what was going to happen here, she’d have to steel herself for giving her baby up to someone else to raise. She wasn’t ready to hand it over yet, though. Not without him agreeing to her stipulations. “Yeah, about that, I’m going to need a legal contract and a check before you claim rights to the script.”

“You think I’m going to pass this off as my own or something?”

Why was he being defensive? He had said he wanted to buy it, after all. “No, but remember my goal of being a slightly less poor librarian? Getting paid for my intellectual product will help with that.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line and Moira wondered how high he counted before he spoke. “Fine. I’ll contact my lawyer and have him draw up a contract.”

“Thanks. And um, I really need to get going if I’m not going to be late.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Sure. Bye.”

>< 

Moira texted him when she finally got home to say good night. She didn’t want him to think she was avoiding him. She really wasn’t, but after the blow up over lunch and their awkward conversation earlier, she wanted to reassure him that things were copacetic.

He texted back to tell her sweet dreams, and with a sigh of relief that things were getting back to normal, she went to bed.

>< 

When she woke up the next morning, there was a single text from Jax. “I’ve been reading your short stories. You know how Mary Oliver writes about the natural world? You write like that about the city.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

When she got out of the shower there was another message from him. “It’s not flattery. You’ve really improved. When you publish your first book, I’ll come to one of your signings so you can autograph it for me.”

She set the phone back down with a smile and continued to get ready for work.

That afternoon as she was shelving books, hands closed over her eyes. She stamped down hard on the instep of the person behind her, and was greeted with a bellowing, “Fuck, Moira, it’s me.”

Moira whirled around to see Tom . “Shhhh, you’ll attract attention.”

“Why the hell did you do that?” He leaned against the bookshelf, massaging his throbbing foot.

“You grabbed me out of nowhere. How was I supposed to know it was you? What are you doing here anyway?”

“I thought I’d drop by and see my girlfriend.”

Moira grabbed him by the arm and pulled him further back into the reference section. The last thing she needed right now was Connie seeing Tom here. “I’m at work! You can’t come gallivanting in here whenever you want.”

“It’s a public library. I’m a public.”

“Tom, you are more than a public and you know it.” Moira tilted her head to the end of the aisle and Tom followed her nod. There was half a dozen women standing there intently watching them, including one of the other librarians.

“Sorry. Is there another way out so I can avoid the crowd?”

Moira nodded. “Go the other way, turn left, and take the stairs down. As long as you don’t have a book down your trousers, you won’t set off any alarms.”

“That’s not a book, darling.” Moira couldn’t help smiling at him as he waggled an eyebrow. He was like a child trying to get a parent to forgive their mistake. “Dinner tonight?”

“I’ll call you when I get off work, alright?”

“When is that?”

“Half past six.”

He looked around to make sure no one was watching and then kissed her. “I’ll be counting the minutes.”

>< 

Moira paced the pavement outside the library as she waited for Cherise to respond to her text. “I went to lunch with Jax yesterday.”

Her mobile rang. “Why are you doing that? You’re dating Tom Hiddleston! I’ve seen the nude scene, girl. You don’t give that up for an ex-boyfriend.”

She put a hand over her eyes, as if not being able to see would make her confession less painful. “I still have feelings for Jax.”

“God dammit, Moira. It’s Tom Fucking Hiddleston.”

Moira quickly turned down the volume. Cherise wasn’t known to be quiet at the best of times, and she definitely wasn’t being quiet now. “I know. And believe me, I’m very much enjoying fucking Tom Fucking Hiddleston, and I care for him, but what does it mean that I still have feelings for Jax after two years?”

“Did you actually tell him what happened?”

“Yeah. It was difficult but I did.”

“And what did Jax say?”

“That he understood. And that he wished that I wasn’t already in a relationship.”

Cherise made a low whistle. “Damn girl. Does Tom know he said that?”

“No. But I did tell Tom that I still have feelings for Jax.”

“So what, you go from not sharing enough with your last boyfriend to sharing way too much with this one?”

If it wouldn’t garner weird looks from passersby and possibly cause cranial damage, Moira would have pounded her head against the wall. “Can you please stop telling me I did it wrong and tell me what to do instead?”

“You left Jax before and now you say you have feelings for him. You left Tom and now you’re dating him. Maybe you should stop leaving people you have feelings for.”

“But what do I do if I have feelings for both of them?”

Cherise didn’t respond for a while. Finally, she said, “Threesome?”

“Thanks, Cherise. I’m sure they’re both gonna agree to that.”

>< 

Tom and Moira sat in his Jag outside her building. The windows were fogged over from them making out like teenagers. “Why can’t I come up?”

“I told you. I have work in the morning and if I let you come up I’ll never get enough sleep.”

“I can keep my hands to myself.”

Moira laughed loudly and then stuck her tongue out. “Tell me another one. I like to laugh.”

“I bet you would let Jax come up.”

Moira didn’t laugh. She opened the car door and started to step out when Tom grabbed her arm and pulled her back in.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Moira couldn’t even look at him. “No, you shouldn’t have.”

“You still have feelings for him. I get jealous.”

“Obviously.” She rubbed at her eyes, tired but unwilling to leave the conversation where it was for the night. “You have nothing to be jealous about. I chose you, remember? And those feelings will start to fade now that I’ve had some closure with him.” What was that line about saying something hoping it would make it true? She desperately hoped it would be true in this case. She stroked his cheek and he leaned into the caress like a dog being scratched behind the ears. “I told you I wouldn’t cheat and I’m keeping my word.”

He pulled her into another kiss. “Sleep well, fair maiden. I shall talk with thee anon.”

Shaking her head at his ridiculousness, she got out of the car and went into her building. She waved at him as she entered, thinking it was sweet that he waited to make sure she got inside safe. She yawned as she made her way to the lift. It was almost midnight and she was used to being asleep by now. She was going to need to talk to Tom about her need for more sleep than she was getting but decided to wait for a few more weeks for his jealousy to settle down.

When she exited the lift, she saw something large and grey in the hallway leaning next to her door. As she got closer she recognized it. It was her bookshelf. Jax had made it for her as a birthday present one year. She ran her hands over the smooth wood, stained a lovely shade of grey that reminded her of cloudy skies over both Portland and London and which still let the grain show through. He had worked on it when she had night classes and study groups, and it was a masterful piece of craftsmanship with dovetail joins and hand carved moldings. She picked up the note that was sitting on it.

_Moira –_

_I know you didn’t have the ability to take it home with you when you left for Portland, but now that you’re back I want you to have this again. I know you acquire books at a prodigious rate. Hopefully this can be a home for a small part of your collection._

_Jax_

Moira folded the paper and trailed her fingers over one of the shelves. There was no way to hide this from Tom. She’d just have to tell him she bought it at a consignment store. She opened her door and carefully pulled the heavy bookshelf inside. It would look perfect in her bedroom.


	12. Chapter Eleven

Moira checked her phone for messages as she ate breakfast. There was nothing from Tom which surprised her, but there was a text from Jax. “Please tell me the bookshelf was there when you got home.”

She’d been so excited to get all her books off of the floor and onto a proper shelf that she’d completely forgotten to text him. “Yes. Thank you. Now I have an excuse to go shopping for books.”

“Like you’ve ever needed an excuse.”

She didn’t know how to respond. Was any conversation with him at all off-limits? Probably. At least until she didn’t want to spend an afternoon wandering around used bookshops with him, questing for treasures amongst endless copies of Nicholas Sparks and John le Carré. She carried her phone into the bathroom and placed it on the counter as she finished her makeup, trying to think of an appropriate but impersonal response. She was unsuccessful.

Sixteen hours later she finally made it back home again. She cursed as she opened the door to her apartment, the bags of food slipping from her hands, as she realized she’d left the lights on all day. She did not have the money to be wasting on utilities. She kicked the door shut behind her and took two steps inside before she saw Tom sitting on the sofa.

Moira carefully put the bags down on the floor before she dropped them. “What are you doing here?”

He drummed his fingers on his knee as he looked her up and down. She felt like her dad had caught her breaking curfew. “Where have you been?”

“At work. Why are you in my flat?  _How_  are you in my flat?” The door automatically locked when shut, though you had to manually engage the deadbolt. There was no way he had entered through the front door without help.

He made a show of looking at his watch. God she hated that watch. He always dressed so nicely except for that damn running watch. “You’ve been at work until now? When you didn’t let me come up last night because you had to go to work early?”

“I worked this morning, had the afternoon off, and then went back to work. I swapped hours with Teagan so I could go to my writing group Wednesday.”

“And who were you with this afternoon? Is that when Jax came over to deliver the bookshelf? What else did he do in your bedroom?”

Moira clamped her hand over her mouth, digging her fingers into her cheeks until it hurt. Her breathing sounded like it came from an angry bull pawing the ground and Tom was wearing red. Possessiveness was one thing; this jealousy was another matter entirely. If she’d known he was going to break into her house, she would have hidden the note instead of leaving it on the bookshelf. When she thought she could speak without screaming or picking up something and throwing it at him, she slowly lowered her hand. “Get out,” she said with deadly preciseness.

Tom stood and stalked over to her. “No,” he crossed his arms over his chest and stared down his nose at her. “Tell me who you were with.”

Of course she chose to wear flats today. She backed up a step from him so she wouldn’t have to crane her neck. “I was writing. Remember? I’m trying to be a writer. It takes time. Now get out.”

“I made dinner to apologize for being so jealous, and you didn’t even bother coming home.”

Moira looked over at her tiny kitchen. There were several covered pots on the stove, and the table was laid with beautiful dishes that she’d never seen before. He’d even brought flowers. She took another deep breath. “Okay. First,” she flicked up a finger, “this is  _my_  home, not yours. Second, you don’t get to be mad at me for not showing up on time for you breaking into my house. Third, get the fuck out of my apartment!”

“I’m not leaving until we have dinner.”

Moira stomped into her bedroom and came out wielding Excalibur. He had brought it a few over a few nights before. “Get. Out.”

Tom held up his hands, a flash of fear showing in his eyes and then disappearing. Or maybe it had been a trick of the light. “Moira, put the sword down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“No,” her nostrils flared as she glared at him, “I’m going to hurt  _you_. Get out.” She was louder this time.

“Moira,” he started, but she waved the sword at him, slapping him with the side of the blade.

“Get out,” she snarled.

“Darling,” he tried again.

“No. Get out.” She smacked him with it again.

“Please, listen.”

She shook her head. “I’ll listen once you leave.”

He held up both hands and started edging towards the door. Moira circled with him, keeping the point aimed at his chest, though it took her both hands to keep the longsword steady enough where it looked like a threat. As soon as he had backed out the door, Moira slammed the door shut and threw home the bolt. Letting the sword clatter to the floor, she dove for her bag. Ignoring Tom as he yelled at her that she was ruining his apology, she pawed through her things looking for her phone but it wasn’t there. Swearing, she scrambled into the bathroom and grabbed it off the counter where she had forgotten it this morning. There were a dozen messages from Tom which she ignored and flipped through her contacts looking for Luke. He picked up on the second ring.

“Luke, it’s Moira. Tom’s pounding on my door and yelling and he broke in here earlier and you have thirty minutes to get him out of here or I’m calling the cops.”

“Fuck.” There was a deep sigh. “I’ll be right there.”

Moira’s head jerked back. “You don’t sound particularly surprised.”

“I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen. I’m on my way.”

“Do you need my address? And what do you mean you’ve been waiting for this? He’s being  _crazy_.”

“No, I don’t need your address. I programmed it into my mobile as soon as I knew you were back in town. Listen, the story’s too long to tell over the phone. I’ll tell you everything and answer all your questions as soon as I get him in the ambulance. You might need to help me talk him into going with the medics, if you think you’re up to it. Just try and keep him calm until I get there.”

Luke hung up as Tom began pounding on the door. Not knowing what else to do, she sat on the floor next to the vibrating door and held Excalibur in her lap. Taking a deep breath, she called out Tom’s name.

He fell silent.

“You’re kind of scaring me, Tom. I know you don’t want to scare me, right?”

“I never want to scare you, Moira.”

Her hands shook as she hugged herself. “I need you to do something for me, Tom. Would you tell me a story? Just so I remember how much I love it when you read to me. Tell me one of your favorite stories so I won’t be scared anymore.”

“Of course, darling. Can I come in and tell it to you?”

She scooted away from the door a few inches. “When it’s over. I need to know you’re not going to scare me anymore, alright? Tell me stories until I calm down.”

“Alright.” She heard him slide to the floor. “Just one moment while I find the story I want.” Several seconds later, he started. “Oh my best beloved, this is _The Jungle Book_. ‘Now Rann the Kite brings home the night that Mang the Bat sets free.’”

Moira sat on the floor and listened to him read her  _The Jungle Book_ once more, and tried not to let him hear her cry.

She was numb by the time she heard Luke, her eyes red and raw. Tom began to scream at her again, yelling that she had betrayed him, that she was just like Guinevere. Moira recoiled from the accusation. She shoved Excalibur away, letting it clatter to the floor off of her lap and hissed as the steel sliced into her palm. Drops of red glistened on the edge of the blade and she lurched to her feet, holding her bleeding hand against her chest.

Moira threw open the door. “Please, Tom. Please go with Luke.”  

He turned away from Luke and the two large men lurking behind him, both clad in white short-sleeve jackets. They weren’t medics, at least not in any uniform she recognized, though one of them had a syringe in his hand. “Moira, please let me explain.”

“Tom, Thomas, please.” She stepped closer to him and grabbed his face and held it steady. Standing on her tip toes, she kissed him softly until she felt the fury and tension seep out of him. “Listen, darling. I’m scared and I’m bleeding.” She held out her hand, letting him see the cut, ignoring the smear of red across his cheek.

He grabbed her hand in his, cradling it with his long fingers. “Did I do that to you?”

“No, I cut myself on Excalibur. You were right; I need more practice with something smaller.” Ignoring the pain, she smiled up at him, trying to reestablish their shattered rapport.

“You should get this looked at.” His fingers moved through the air over the cut, wanting to touch her to make her feel better, but knowing that it would make it worse.

“I will. You go with Luke and these nice men. They’re going to make sure you’re alright.”

He looked up at her face from where he had been staring at her hand. “I’m fine.”

“I know you are. But you scared me tonight and I need them to tell me that you’re not going to do that again, okay? Do this for me?”

“Of course. Anything you ask, darling.”

Luke mouthed thank you at her as Tom kissed the skin by the cut and then left with Luke, looking over his shoulder at her until they were all in the lift.

Moira went back inside and retrieved her phone from the floor. She ignored Tom’s messages as she walked into the kitchen and got a tea towel to wrap around her hand. Exhausted, starving, and bleeding, she called Jax.

“Darling, love of my life, how are you?”

Even with everything in her life falling apart, she smiled at the cheerful greeting. “Grant? I’m not the love of your life. The love of your life was hand stitched by an Italian and is hanging in your wardrobe.”

“Ah, how well you know me. Are you booty-calling our fine friend?”

She picked at the basket of bread Tom had assembled as she rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not booty-calling Jax. Why are you answering his phone?”

“He’s currently hustling someone at pool.”

“Oh god.” That brought back memories. “Is this a friendly hustle or a grab the money and run hustle?”

“It’s friendly.”

“Are both of you too drunk to drive?”

“This sounds interesting. Do you need a ride somewhere in the middle of the night? Are you up to shenanigans without us?”

“I’m bleeding, Grant.”

There was a pause and then a suspicious inquiry. “From places you shouldn’t be?”

Did he really think she was calling Jax to go buy her tampons or something? “Yes. From places I shouldn’t be and Cherise is actually at the hospital because she’s a nurse and Rhys is in France for work right now and I really don’t want to take a cab and bleed all over it and I’m alone and scared and need a ride to A&E.”

“Love,” Jax interrupted. Grant must have handed the phone over at some point in her tirade. “We’ll be right there. Should I call an ambulance?”

She fought back another wave of tears at the sound of his voice. “No. I just don’t want to be alone and I didn’t know who else to call.”

“We’re on our way.” 


	13. Chapter Twelve

Moira huddled on her couch, nibbling at a piece of bread while she kept pressure on her hand. She was too wired to go to read or watch television or do anything other than replay the horrific events that had happened in her apartment over the last few hours. Excalibur still lay on the floor where it had been dropped. The bags of food were there as well. She couldn’t make herself care enough to put them away. All she could do was hear the sound of Tom screaming that she had betrayed him when Luke had arrived. The knock on the door scared her. Had Tom managed to escape from whoever those big men had been? “Moira, it’s Jax.”

She peered through the peephole to check that it really was him, even though she’d recognized his voice. Her fingers trembled as she undid the lock to let him in. He looked at Excalibur on the floor and then at her standing in front of him with her hand cradled between her breasts, the white towel turning red as her blood soaked into the weave.

“Do I want to know?”

She shook her head.

“Come on then; Grant’s holding the cab.”

Sandwiched in the back seat between Jax and Grant, her bleeding hand and the numbness of her heart and head were the only things that set this night apart from so many others she had enjoyed. Her head tilted slowly, inexorably, to Jax’s shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer. She silently blessed him for not asking anymore questions. She didn’t have many answers she could give right now. She didn’t understand herself what had happened.

When they got to A&E, they both sat with her silently. She was seen quickly and Jax held one hand as the doctor glued the other one back together. Moira was fascinated by what he was doing. She had been expecting a palm full of stitches. “You’re lucky. Any deeper and you would have had nerve damage.”

“At least it’s not my writing hand.”

“It’s gonna hurt like a bitch for a while, but you’ll be fine.” He gave her a prescription for pain killers and sent her on her way. Moira was grateful he hadn’t questioned her explanation that she had been slicing open a bagel and the knife had slipped.

When they finally got back to her apartment, Jax sent Grant home, insisting that he was going to stay and make sure Moira got settled. Moira insisted she would be fine by herself, but he didn’t listen, and when she tripped over the threshold into her building, she was grateful for him catching her before she landed on her face. Apparently the pain meds were working.

Moira let him in to her apartment and he picked up Excalibur and set the sword in a corner. Moira flopped down on her sofa and Jax quietly put the bags of food away. “When’s the last time you ate something?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Jax started to peel a banana. “Yeah, but those pain meds are going to do a number on you without something in your stomach.”

“Ice cream.”

Jax fetched the pint from the freezer and brought it to her on the sofa along with the banana. He held the container for her as she spooned out bites to feed herself and made sure she ate the fruit as well. “You going to tell me what happened? Because I don’t see any bagels and it looks like the makings of a romantic dinner for two have gone cold on the hob.”

“I cut myself on the stupid sword,” she slurred.

“Why were you playing with a longsword?”

“’S‘Scalibur.”

Apparently she had the same head for pain meds as she did for wine. Her cheeks were already flushed pink. “Alright, then why were you playing with Excalibur?”

“Tom thinks you’re my Lancelot,” she told her spoon.

The container of ice cream crinkled in his grip. “Did he attack you with a sword?”

Moira lurched up from her comfortable sprawl and patted Jax on the shoulder. “No! No. He broke in and I used it to kick him out.”

“Well, that’s better.” His jaw relaxed slightly. “I guess.”

Moira slumped back against the sofa and closed her eyes. “I think I’m back in the blender, honey,” she said softly.

“Can I ask a favor of you?”

Moira carefully managed to open one eye and look at him, though she was already mostly asleep. “What?”

“This time don’t slog through it. Ask for help to get you out.”

Her eye closed and she was asleep before she could answer.

>< 

The next morning Luke sat on the other end of her sofa and stared into his cup of tea like he’d find the perfect words there in the Earl Grey. “Tom’s always been exuberant. I’ve spent close to a decade trying to keep him on task and on time. You two broke up right before he started  _Coriolanus_ , and I don’t know how close of an eye you kept on him after that, but he was supposed to be filming a little thank you for an award and he got hit in the head. There was a lot of speculation about what had happened because he showed up in the film with a plaster.”

“That’s the scar he still has.” She had kissed it multiple times in the last week.

“Yes. Well, Tom insisted it was only a little cut and refused to let the people at A&E do anything about it.”

Her tea cup rattled on its saucer and she set it down before it spilled. “Oh my god, is he brain damaged?”

“It’s called a traumatic brain injury, but yes.”

Moira tried and failed to wrap her mind around the idea of something being seriously wrong with him. They had enjoyed such wonderful moments together in the last week. Luke had to be lying to her. His explanation made no sense. “How have you managed to keep this hidden for so long?”

“Because he’s not always like this. There was some bleeding in the brain that didn’t get caught in time, and a clot formed and cut off oxygen to part of his brain, particularly the frontal lobe. That controls things like impulse control and emotional response.” Luke recited the words like he’d said them many times. He probably had. She wondered how many outbursts of Tom’s he’d smoothed over and swept away in the last several years.

“So why did he go crazy now? That scar’s over four years old.”

“Well, there’s medication that helps, and behavioral therapy as well. One of the things that Tom has that helps the ability to hyper-focus on things that interest him. Luckily, one of those things is his career. Unfortunately for you, it also seems to be that you’re one of the things he focuses on.”

Moira picked up her tea and took a sip as she tried to understand what Luke was telling her. “So, he’s in love with me?”

“It’s not love, Moira. I’m sorry. I have this theory that the reason he is the way he is about you is that the healing in his brain happened while he was filming  _Crimson Peak._  I’m sure neurologists would find my theory ridiculous, but he’s obsessed with you, dear.”

“We’ve only been together a week. How can he be obsessed already?”

Luke shook his head and put down his tea. He turned to Moira and took one of her hands in his. “He’s been obsessed with you for years, Moira. Why do you think I did so much to keep you away from him? You’re bad for him. He stops taking his meds when he gets fixated on you. He has photos of you that he’s printed out from stalking social media. You know he’s sabotaged every relationship he’s tried to have because of you, right?”

“He mentioned they didn’t work out.”

“I tried setting him up with women who didn’t look anything like you at all, hoping to shift his focus. It never worked. I realized I had to go into disaster prevention mode when I found out that he’d testified at Bee’s parole hearing for her on the condition that once she got out of prison she would hack your phone so he could watch your GPS and see all of your texts and emails.”

Moira yanked her hand away from Luke’s reassuring grasp. “He did what?”

“When Jax took you to Lake Como for your six month anniversary. He knew you were in love and couldn’t deal with it. I’d change your password on the website for your mobile. And the rest of your social media sites. You really shouldn’t use the same password for all of those.”

Moira lurched to her feet and desperately tried to remember when she’d last changed her passwords. Surely she’d done it sometime in the last three and a half years. Right? “So, he’s been stalking me all this time?”

“Off and on. I can tell when he’s misbehaving and I get his therapist appointments ramped back up and we adjust his medications. But he’s obsessed with you, Moira. Everyone who has worked with him has tried to break it and we can’t. Apparently being back together with you was more than he could handle.”

She grabbed her necklace, her fingers closing around the reassuringly large pendant. It was warm against her clammy palm. “So he’s gonna be like that sociopath husband character in _Crimson Peak_  whenever he’s around me?”

Luke sagged back against the sofa and watched Moira pace her small living room. “I don’t know what he’ll be like. But this is how he is with you now. He’s jealous, possessive, and crosses boundaries.”

She stopped to look at him, but her hand still tugged her pendant back and forth along her necklace. “But won’t that go away over time? Once he knows he can trust me? Once he realizes that I’m his now, that he can let go of all of his fears?”

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t there something you can do? Medications or surgery or something?”

Luke had seen a similar look of pleading on Tom’s mother’s face when the extent of Tom’s injury had been discovered. “He’s on his way to a very discreet clinic right now where they’ll get his medications rebalanced. But that part of the brain is dead. Extreme personality changes after a traumatic brain injury are a well-known phenomenon, Moira. They don’t simply get fixed. And you’ve only been with him a week. It’s not like you’re married to him. You don’t owe him anything.”

She shook her head furiously. “I don’t believe you. There’s no way he could be like this and still have the career he has. He’s won every award under the sun in the last five years!”

“Acting is his other obsession. Why do you think he’s so busy all the time? The people around him encourage him to constantly work. It keeps him more stable than thinking about you.”

Moira rubbed her arms with her hands, suddenly freezing cold. “What am I supposed to do, Luke? I can’t just dump him.”

“Why not? You’ve been together a week. If some new guy you were dating a week broke into your house, what would you do?”

She didn’t answer for several seconds “Call the police,” she finally muttered.

Luke stood and took the few steps he needed to stand in front of Moira and took her by the shoulders. “You need to stop making this part of your past control your present. You had six weeks almost five years ago, and I know you feel like it got torn away from you by circumstances beyond your control, but don’t let it fuck up your future. My job is to protect Tom. Nobody’s paying me to protect you, too. That sounds harsh, but you need to look out for yourself here. Tom’s not the guy he was back then. You need to face the reality you’re living in, not the one you want to be having.”

Moira’s chin began to quiver. “Can I see him? I need to talk to him. I need to hear this from him.”

Luke closed his eyes for a long moment. “I’ll call you in a few days, alright? Let him get a bit more stable and then I’ll see what the doctor says.”

“Alright.”

>< 

Cherise held the door to the visiting room open for Moira. She tugged her cardigan tighter around her before she went in. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.” She nodded and he let the door close. Luke had insisted she take someone with her on the visit and so she had called Cherise. Out of the friends she had in London, Cherise was the one most likely to understand what was going on and could help her decide what to do.

Tom came in through a door on the other side of the room. He was dressed simply in a white tee and track pants and thongs. Up until this moment, part of her had believed all of this was simply a bad dream, some huge mistake, but the light that normally emanated from him was gone. Unbidden by her brain, her hand covered her mouth to hide her quavering frown.

Tom sat down in the seat across from hers. He tried to smile, but wasn’t very successful. “So, I didn’t handle you coming back into my life well.”

“It’s true then? What Luke said?”

Tom rubbed his fingers over his scar. “I can autograph a picture of my brain for you if you want. You can see the damage for yourself.”

Her face was pale and drawn as she brushed her hair back from it, with dark circles under her eyes. It had been three days since she had woken up to Jax on her sofa. He had made her breakfast and then left and she hadn’t talked to him since. She had taken the day off from work and slept through most of it. Somehow Luke had worked his magic and kept the story out of the news, because when she finally had made it back to work, Connie didn’t assault her for details. She’d spent a lot of time at work researching traumatic brain injuries and the information weighed on her. “I don’t know what to do. I’m your girlfriend, but… I don’t think I can live like… I don’t know how to cope with this.”

“You’re not going to, darling. I’m breaking up with you.” He was so still with none of the frenetic energy that normally animated him. There was no smile, no mischievous grin, no twinkle in his eyes.

 “You’re dumping me?”

“I’m obsessed with you Moira, but I can’t love you. There’s still part of me that remembers what love is. Shakespeare helps me remember. I should love you, and for that part of me, I’m letting you go. No guilt.”

Her heart lurched. Part of her wanted to kneel down and thank him, but she couldn’t give up on her word so easy. She had made him a promise. She had chosen him. “Don’t make any decisions right now. Let’s see what you’re like when you’re medications are steady. Maybe we can make this work.”

“I remember what it felt like to be in love, Moira. I don’t feel that anymore. I  _can’t_  feel that anymore. I can only pretend anymore.”

Her forehead furrowed, deepening the lines that had taken up permanent residence there the last few days. “We’ve only been together a week. Of course you’re not in love with me.”

Tom slowly shook his head. “No, Moira. I remember what it felt like the first time we were together. I remember the way I felt about you. What I have now is just a dark whisper of that. You deserve more. More than I can give you.”

Her eyes stung as she tried to think of something to say. She knew this was for the best, but she still felt like she was deserting him. “Thomas…”

“The one act of love I can give you, my best beloved, is to free you to live a better life than the one I can give you.”

Moira’s chest heaved with a suppressed sob. “Thank you.”

Tom stood and picked up her bandaged hand. He turned it over and gently touched his lips to her palm. Moira ran her hand over his hair and then cupped his cheek. “Goodbye, Tom.”

When he reached the door, he stopped with his hand on it but he didn’t turn around and look at her. “One more thing. Now that the distance isn’t a problem anymore, if you and Jax work out together, I’ll do my best to be happy for you. He made you happy once. I think he could make you happy again.”

He left, and Cherise entered the room and sat down next to her. Moira didn’t say anything but Cherise handed her a hanky. Moira leaned her head against her friend’s shoulder and began to cry.

>< 

_Two weeks later_

Moira hesitated before she hit the send button. This was the first time she’d texted Jax since she and Tom had broken up.  “According to the hippies that infest Portland, some Native American tribes burned sage as a way of removing negative energy and cleansing their homes.”

“Is that so?”

Moira bit her bottom lip as she typed in her response. She couldn’t believe she was confessing this to him. “So I bought a bunch of sage and set it on fire and waved it around my flat.”

“Set off the smoke alarm?”

Full on embarrassment time now. “Yeah. I’m not sure how well it worked because I don’t think setting on fire the groceries you bought at Whole Foods is really the essence of the ceremony.”

“Did you at least get dried sage?”

She could hear him laughing. He was probably sitting in that big leather chair of his and having a beer while he laughed. “You’re supposed to dry it first? WHAT? Yes, dork, I got dried sage.”

“Just checking. I remember you getting clotted cream and cottage cheese confused once.”

Moira grimaced at the memory of the taste. That had been the worst meal ever. “My problem now is that my entire flat reeks of smoke.”

“That sounds like a problem.”

 _Put your big girl panties on, Moira, and ask him._  “And I was looking at the menu at Ottolenghi’s and saw they had fried sage leaves on the menu.”

“Is that so?”

 _Quit being deliberately obtuse, Jax._ “I thought that they sounded like a delicious way to reinforce the idea of cleaning out the negative of the past.”

“They probably would.”

He was going to make her ask. She deserved that, to actually have to ask instead of him picking up on her hints. “Would you like to join me for dinner tonight? Maybe share some fried sage leaves with me? For old times’ sake?”

“Only if you share a bottle of champagne with me as well.”

Hope rose in her heart like bubbles. “Are we celebrating something?”

“Getting out of the blender.”


	14. Epilogue

_Five years later_

Moira was skimming through the coverage of last night’s BAFTA awards when the picture of Tom with an attractive woman on his arm caught her attention. She was used to seeing him stag or with Luke at these things. She paused in her flipping through the images to try and remember the last time she had seen him. In the first few years after they parted she would see him every four or five months outside the library. He never tried to be inconspicuous. When he knew that she had seen him he would wave and she would wave back and he would leave. Then she would call Luke and let him know that Tom was slipping. Now she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him. It must have been at least two years.

Curious, she called Luke. After all that they’d gone through, she had his direct number.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, chippy, but I was really hoping to never hear from you again. Did he show up?”

“No. I just realized I haven’t seen him in years. Whatever you’ve done has worked.”

There was a relieved sigh. “Oh good.”

“Is he better? I saw he had a date last night. He kissed her and everything.”

“Experimental treatment. Had to go to an undisclosed country to get it done. Series of stem cell injections into the damaged areas of the brain.”

Moira shuddered at the image but she also filed away the information in the ideas section of her writer brain. “And it worked?”

“It did for him. It didn’t fix everything but it fixed enough. He’s in love with her, Moira. Her kids call him Daddy.”

She was surprised at the tears suddenly choking her throat.“Oh, that makes me so happy.”

She was just ending the call when her daughter ran into the room, half dressed and carrying her Black Widow doll in a choke hold. “What’re you doing, Mumma?”

“Just saying goodbye to an old friend. Where is your shirt?”

Jax came walking into the kitchen, her shirt in one hand and her favorite red shoes in the other. Moira smiled at him and he kissed the top of her head as he tracked their daughter down.

Portland saw daddy approaching and ran squealing. “Noooooo, shirts burrrrrrns ussssss, preciousssss.”

Jax scooped her up and looked at Moira. “You really needed to read her  _The Hobbit_?”

Moira hid her laughter behind her hand. The last thing her daughter needed was encouragement. “It’s a kids book.”

Jax grunted as one of his daughter’s feet connected with his stomach. “She’s three.”

“Come here, child.” Moira took her flailing daughter from her husband and sat her on the kitchen island. “You are not a Gollum right now. You are a Bilbo.”

“I’m a Bilbo?”

Moira nodded. “You’re a Bilbo. And do you know what Bilbos need?”

“What?”

Praying that this worked, she continued. “Shirts. Shirts with pocketses in them.”

Portland turned to look at her daddy. “Does that shirt have pocketses?”

Luckily it did.

When they were all dressed, the three of them left their house. Her fingers trailed over the art nouveau detailing on the front door as she checked to make sure it was securely locked. Moira loved every detail of their home and not just because Jax had designed it. Portland walked between them, holding on to both of their hands. “Are we going on an adventure?”

Moira grinned down at her baby girl, wearing a red cape and matching hood with a point and tassel. “We are going to the bookstore and Mumma has her first book signing ever and if you’re super good while Mumma is signing books, you can pick out a book to take home for your very own.”

“Five books.”

Jax smiled at Moira over their daughter’s head. “I’ll build her another bookshelf.”

“Alright, munchkin. Five books.” She’d never been good at telling her daughter no when it came to books.

Portland looked up at her parents and her eyes narrowed speculatively. “And a pretzel?”


End file.
